10-05-2012 Lastest News

Defra Opens Applications For Second Round of £20m Rural Broadband Fund
http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/news/defra-funding-rural-broadband-77288

For further information please visit

http://www.defra.gov.uk/news/2012/05/10/rural-business-and-broadband-grant-applications-open/

http://rdpenetwork.defra.gov.uk/funding-sources/rural-community-broadband-fund

Rural Community Broadband Fund

The three bids submitted (Abthorpe, Warmington & Lutton and Rockingham) have all received the green light to proceed to full application stage.   The Broadband Team helped the rural communities concerned build their business cases and complete the required expression of interest (EOI) form, while it led the application for the Rockingham exchange project.  This funding is for the most rural areas in the final 10%.  The combined ask of the fund totalled £409k, with £275k towards a project for Rockingham exchange that will be led by NCC and be integrated into the countywide project.  Like with the BDUK process this will be matched by the private sector.  The three projects will cover about 2,000 premises.   Only 39 EOIs were submitted nationally with 16 invited to submit full applications. 

The RCBF has been launched in England with confirmed funding of £20m and is now open to Expressions of Interest. The RCBF is delivered as part of the Rural Development Programme for England (RDPE). The RCBF is jointly funded by Defra and Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK).

How to Apply?

A second Expession of Interest round is expected to open on 10 May 2012. Full details of how to apply will be available when Round 2 opens. 

Full details of how to apply can be found at http://rdpenetwork.defra.gov.uk/funding-sources/rural-community-broadband-fund

The BDUK web page, containing links to the Toolkit, Data Book and other useful information is also now live: http://www.culture.gov.uk/what_we_do/telecommunications_and_online/8661.aspx

Who can Apply?

You can apply if your community is in a rural location identified as being in the 10% hard to reach area covered by your Local Authority’s Local Broadband Plan (LBP). Acting on behalf of a community, eligible applicants can be:

• Social enterprises;
• Community Interest Companies;
• Community trusts;
• Charities;
• Private Businesses (non-ISPs); and 
• Other formally constituted groups.

This is a rural community scheme. However, Local Authorities may also apply on behalf of communities, or act as the managing authority for an application. Where this is the case, there must be a clear demonstration of community engagement and community support for the project.

It is recommended that communities who are interested in applying to the Fund should work closely with their Local Authorities in order to understand whether they fall within a 10% hardest to reach area, as will be identified in their Local Broadband Plan.

What can be funded under the RCBF?

There is no upper or lower limit to the size of project or grant investment. However, it is likely that below a certain threshold projects will not be economically viable, and projects will be subject to a value for money assessment.

The RCBF will provide up to 50% of total ‘eligible’ costs to communities located in hard-to-reach locations who can demonstrate a local need and a demand for superfast broadband, and the ability to make it happen at a reasonable cost.

Eligible costs would include:

• Capital works costs
• Facilitation and technical support costs
• Other service establishment costs, but not ongoing maintenance costs.

You can decide how you want to develop your project taking account of local needs but projects must integrate with the wider Local Broadband Plan to avoid any duplication of funding and to maximise the Government’s investment by linking where possible into infrastructure being rolled out under BDUK’s national programme.

Under the current RDPE Programme (2007-2013), funding needs to be contracted by 31 December 2013. We will assess early projects on the extent to which a community-led approach is a cost effective way of complementing the mainstream BDUK roll-out programme and bringing superfast broadband to the most hard to reach rural areas. If this is clearly demonstrated, we will explore options for funding and extension of the Fund beyond 2013.

Useful Links

Erisa http://www.broadband-europe.eu/Pages/Home.aspx
FttH Council Europe http://wiki.ftthcouncil.eu/index.php/FTTH_Business_Guide
INCA http://www.inca.coop/beyond-broadband
Rural Broadband Partnership http://www.ruralbroadband.com/for-communities/