East Midlands gets broadband grant

The award by the East Midlands Development Agency signals the start of an initial 14-month campaign that aims to raise awareness of the benefits of high-speed ADSL connections across the six counties in the region.

"Free the Emidlands aims to accelerate the take-up of broadband by helping people understand what's in it for them," said Robin Haynes, broadband business growth manager at the East Midlands Development Agency.

"The campaign will also be looking to speed up demand in areas of our region that don't currently benefit from access with the aim of triggering investment and encouraging collaboration with service providers. Added to this is the need to stimulate widespread demand amongst SMEs and East Midlands people in areas already broadband-enabled."



Specifically, the campaign aims to enable an additional 20,000 households and 2,000 businesses to use broadband services by 2005.

The campaign is being directed by a consortium led by the East Midlands Development Agency and including service providers NTL, Arup and BT, consultant chc choir and media organisations NorthCliffe, GWR, Sabras and Lincs FM.

It will kick off with a number of marketing programmes including direct mail, 'try-before-you-buy' road shows, advertising, events, workshops and seminars.

Since government minister Stephen Timms called for the creation of more public/private partnerships to build Broadband Britain by the new deadline of 2005, grants from government agencies and business consortiums have proliferated.

Timms speech in early November was followed a week later by the announcement of a £12.5m grant from the South West Development Agency in conjunction with Devon County Council, BT, Chronos/Bluewire/Zynet and the universities of Exeter and Plymouth, under the Broadband4Devon project.

Earlier this week the North West Development Agency also gave £12m to bring broadband services, support and education to the Cheshire, Warrington, Greater Manchester and Greater Merseyside areas.

18 November 2003:

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