Thousands of homes and businesses in rural Yorkshire will get access to gigabit-capable broadband after Quickline Communications was awarded a second contract under the government’s £5bn Project Gigabit programme.
The latest win means Yorkshire-based Quickline is now one of only a handful of providers across England with multiple Project Gigabit contracts, covering a combined total of more than 60,000 premises and worth over £104 million in public funding.
The new deal will fund the rollout of a full fibre network to up to 32,100 premises across rural South Yorkshire, along with homes and businesses in East Yorkshire, North Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire.
It comes just weeks after Quickline was awarded a £60m Project Gigabit contract covering 29,000 rural premises in West Yorkshire and parts of North and East Yorkshire.
The new contract will see the connection of outlying communities situated around Barnsley, Doncaster, Epworth, Goole, Maltby, Penistone, Rotherham, Sheffield and Worksop.
Quickline will connect a further 29,000 homes and businesses as part of its commercial network build.
The latest contract was awarded to Quickline following a competitive public procurement process and is worth £44m in government subsidy.
It makes Quickline, which is backed by Northleaf Capital Partners, one of the UK’s largest rural broadband providers.
As well as building a broadband network, Quickline will also play a key role in ensuring economic growth across the region with the delivery of a wide-ranging social values programme seeing the creation of jobs, apprenticeships, training courses, work placements, workshops, mentoring and more.
Quickline CEO Sean Royce said: “We are incredibly proud to have been awarded a second Project Gigabit contract and one that is again in a very important area for us.
“Our roots are in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire and as a broadband provider we have a very strong regional focus. We employ people from Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, we deliver broadband to the people of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire and we want to play our part in the growth and economic development of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire.
“Winning the contract for South Yorkshire, on the back of the one for West Yorkshire, reinforces the important role Quickline is playing in connecting hard-to-reach communities across the region, and how we are supporting the government in achieving its ambitions.”
