Community Fibre Partnership Support Fund

Community Fibre Partnership (CFP) is where BT works with a local group of residents or a group of business owners, to find a solution to bring fibre broadband to their area, especially when they are not included in any existing upgrade plans. This usually needs to be a joint funded, where BT covers the costs in line with its commercial model and the community provides the remaining gap funding.

The Superfast Staffordshire Community Fibre Partnership Support Fund has been set up to complement the BT CFP initiative, and to match the community's contribution up to a maximum of 50 per cent.

The £400,000 support fund enables Superfast Staffordshire to co-invest with communities and will be allocated on a 'first come, first served' basis.

To be eligible for Superfast Staffordshire CFP support funding, the following conditions apply:

• Eligible premises must be within the Superfast Staffordshire intervention area*, 'final 4 per cent'.
• Support funding will only be allocated to existing premises within the intervention area, and will not be allocated to planned premises or partially built premises.
• Support funding will be allocated based on the number of eligible premises gaining access to superfast broadband services (>24 Megabits per second) through the BT CFP programme.
• Support funding will be allocated up to a maximum of 50 per cent of the required gap funding (community contribution) as identified in the BT CFP quotation.
• Support funding will be capped at a maximum of £1,500 per eligible premise.
• Additional checks may be required if there is any possibility that other network providers have plans to deliver superfast broadband services in the coming 12 months**.

Process

The community will need to register an interest on the BT Community Fibre Partnership website in order to get a quotation for the required upgrade work. Once a quotation is available, the community or business will need to fill in an 'Expression of Interest' form and send it to superfast@staffordshire.gov.uk. Eligibility checks can then be undertaken by the Superfast Staffordshire project team. If successful a letter will be issued confirming the Superfast Staffordshire CFP support funding offer, which will be valid for 60 days.

The community will then be required to pay their contribution to Staffordshire County Council. Once the council receives payment in full, the Superfast Staffordshire project team will initiate the start of the project.

The community will be kept informed of project progress by the BT CFP community liaison team.

Benefits of utilising the Superfast Staffordshire CFP Support Fund:

• Reduces the community contribution by up to 50 per cent
• No need to set up a separate legal entity to contract with BT
• Maintenance of the new infrastructure will be the responsibility of Openreach, BT's local network business
• Project management undertaken by Superfast Staffordshire
• No upfront survey fees

* As specified as superfast broadband "white" in the latest Speed & Coverage Template
** It may be necessary to check with other network providers such as Virgin Media if they have any plans to cover the area in question in the coming 12 months.