Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether Benson Village Hall in Wiltshire will benefit from their Project Gigabit.

We are backing Project Gigabit with £5 billion of taxpayers’ money, so that hard-to-reach communities are not left out - starting to level up now, not waiting for the end of the commercial rollout, and adding to the 600,000 rural homes and businesses already covered by gigabit connection with our support.

As set out in our latest publication, ‘Project Gigabit Delivery Plan: Autumn update, Wiltshire is included in Phase 2 (Lot 30) of Project Gigabit. This project aims to give all residents and businesses in Wiltshire access to future-proofed very high speed connectivity. Procurement for Lot 30 is planned to launch between August and October 2022, before a contract commencement date of July to September 2023.

In the meantime, Benson Village Hall can investigate the Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme (GBVS). As part of Project Gigabit, the Government is investing up to £210 million in the Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme (GBVS) to support rural communities with the cost of installing new gigabit-capable connections.The scheme provides a micro-grant of up to £1,500 for residents and up to £3,500 for businesses towards the cost of installing gigabit-capable broadband. It enables households and businesses to club together to increase the total subsidy of a project to cover most or all of the costs for installation to eligible areas.

I am pleased to confirm that, having checked the eligibility of Benson Village Hall in Wiltshire on the GBVS website, it appears that Benson Village Hall is likely to be eligible for the scheme. Further information on how the scheme works is available on our website.