Local authorities will be at the cutting edge of Government plans for a major expansion of broadband in rural areas.
Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt has promised £363m to improve broadband connections in rural areas of England and Scotland as part of drive to give 90% of all homes and businesses super-fast access to the internet by 2015.
County councils and local enterprise partnerships in England will lead the roll-out of broadband within England and are expected to draw up delivery plans that will match the promised £294m Government investment with either their own European or private sector funding.
Devon and Somerset will receive the lions share of funding with £31.3m; North Yorkshire will receive £17.8m; Cumbria: £17m; Norfolk: £15.4m; Lincolnshire: £14.3m; Suffolk: £11.68m; Lancashire: £10.8m; East Sussex: £10.6m and Kent: £9.87m.
The Department for Culture Media and Sport has also published a more detailed breakdown of allocations for each local authority area.
In Scotland the Scottish Government will decide how best to use the £68.8m that it has been allocated and the Welsh Government received £56.9m in July from the national £530m broadband fund set aside from the television licence fee.
The Northern Ireland Executive has already completed an extensive programme to spread superfast broadband which covers some 97% of homes and businesses, but has been promised a£4.4m in additional funding for premises not covered by the existing scheme.
Mr Hunt said: 'Fast broadband is absolutely vital to our economic growth, to delivering public services effectively, and to conducting our everyday lives.
'But some areas of the UK are missing out, with many rural and hard-to-reach communities suffering painfully slow internet connections or no coverage at all. We are not prepared to let some parts of our country get left behind in the digital age.
'We are doing our part – it is now up to local authorities and the Scottish Government to do their bit, to get on board and work with us to secure the social and economic future of their communities.'
