Notts County Council seeks agency for super-speed broadband brief

A nationwide fight to attract millions of pounds worth of super-speed broadband has triggered a £200,000 brief from Nottinghamshire County Council.

The council is searching for an agency to help it compete with other authorities for the high-speed network from BT and other providers.

A pitch-winning agency would be expected to gain pledges of support from local businesses, with the aim of convincing a potential investor to choose the county.

Councillor Keith Girling, chairman of economic development at Nottinghamshire County Council, told PRWeek: ‘We are determined to ensure that when the technology does arrive here, Nottinghamshire is in the best possible shape to embrace it.

‘Building on our Superfast Broadband for Notts campaign, which is appealing for residents and firms to pledge their support for faster broadband speeds in the county, we’re looking for someone to support us in raising awareness in our business community, whether that be through workshops, demos, events or other means.’

The one-year brief comes as part of a nationwide effort to adopt faster web access, pushed forward by a government drive to ensure the UK has the best superfast broadband network in Europe by 2015.

This has seen £530m made available for upper-tier local authorities to bid to develop their own broadband infrastructure projects.

The total cost of providing better broadband access for everyone in Nottinghamshire is £17m, with the council understood to have raised about £8m but needing significant investment from the firm doing the installation.

This article was first published on prweek.com