Connected Capital

Statement from DCMS

"Since the Chancellor announced the Super Connected Cities Programme in 2011 the market has made huge strides in deployment of highspeed broadband across UK cities with increases of more than 50% in some cities and higher speeds and wider coverage to come by 2015. The roll out of 4G mobile and the removal of planning barriers will support this further.

One of the key challenges for cities since the start of the programme has been the question of state aid for infrastructure build, and in particular how to meet EU requirements without creating unhelpful delays to delivery. The December publication of the new EU Broadband Guidelines made this challenge even more difficult by appearing to rule out the solution developed for the Governments rural programme in our Super-Connected Cities. Since then the Government has worked very hard on Cities behalf with the EU Commission and suppliers to find alternatives.

At a recent meeting with the EU Commission it was made clear that a workable State Aid approval for infrastructure would require an investigation of between 7-18 months. On this timescale, and with uncertainty over the eventual decision, cities would find it exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to deliver completed infrastructure elements of their plans by 2015. The decision has therefore been taken to remove state -aid dependent infrastructure build from the scope of SCCP. This will allow cities to focus efforts on the components of their projects that can be delivered on time and can contribute to growth now"

Update from Connected Capital Programme

At this time the Connected Capital Team are working to develop a revised submission to support Edinburghs aspiration to become a super connected city. There will be a further update once confirmation is received from BDUK.

In the meantime if you wish to contact the programme click here