- Beneficiaries can receive up to £1,500 for a Residential voucher and £3,500 for an SME voucher
- In certain circumstances the funding provided may not be sufficient to cover the complete cost of the network installation. Potential reasons for a funding shortfall include, but are not exclusive to, which county your property is located and too few SME voucher requests. In such circumstances the beneficiary may be required to contribute towards the final costs.
- Top-up funding is available in the following counties for Residential / SME vouchers:
Borderlands
Buckinghamshire
Cambridgeshire
County Durham
Derbyshire
Dorset
East Riding
East Sussex
Hampshire
Kent
£3,000 / £7,000
£3,500 / £7,000
£3,000 / £5,000
£3,000 / £7,000
£3,000 / £7,000
£2,500 / £6,000
£3,000 / £7,000
£2,500 / £4,500
£3,000 / £3,500
£7,000 / £7,000
Nottinghamshire
Oxfordshire
Peterborough
Scotland
Shropshire
Staffordshire
Wales
Warwickshire
West Sussex
Worcestershire
£3,000 / £7,000
£7,000 / £7,000
£3,000 / £3,500
£6,500 / £8,500
£4,000 / £7,000
£3,500 / £5,500
£3,000 / £7,000
£4,000 / £4,000
£4,000 / £4,000
£3,000 / £7,000
ELIGIBILITY
- Current download speed of not less than 30Mbps (eligibility in some counties is 100Mbps)
- Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), including sole traders and not-for-profit organisations, are eligible. So are residents. We will often require you to provide trading evidence to confirm that an SME beneficiary is a legitimate trading entity.
- To qualify for a voucher the business beneficiary must meet the European Commission definition of SME, these can be summarised as:
INELIGIBILITY
- A Beneficiary that has received a previous voucher under the Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme. SME Business Beneficiaries may benefit from multiple connections supported by the scheme at different locations, but may not benefit more than the £3,500 in total.
- Premises that have received (or are scheduled to receive within 12 months) a connection which meets the connectivity requirements as part of previous (or planned) State Aid intervention.
- As a result of the voucher contribution included within the relevant package, an SME Business having received £200,000 or more in public grants in the last 3 years from the date of contracting for the relevant package.
- An organisation that is a school funded by the Department of Education, a public sector organisation, a privately funded school operating between the ages of 3-18 and/or an organisation solely involved with offering provision under the requirement for young people to remain in education or training until their 18th birthday.
The following are also not eligible to benefit from a Rural voucher
- Third parties not in Rural areas as defined by DEFRA (or the appropriate national body)
- Enterprises owned or controlled by a registered supplier
- Any beneficiary who has an existing leased line delivered by fibre which is considered to be gigabit-capable and properties with such a service are not eligible for a voucher as part of the Scheme
- Premises that have or are scheduled to have gigabit-capable services are part of a state aid supported intervention are excluded from this Scheme.
- The Isle of Man is not part of the UK and businesses there are not eligible
- Established churches (Church of England/Catholic) do not qualify since they are larger‘ enterprises’. Small independent churches are more likely to meet the qualifying criteria of an SME. A charity and or company number should be provided.
