Foster welcomes funding to develop Londonderry as a super-connected city

ENTERPRISE Minister Arlene Foster today welcomed the announcement that Londonderry could potentially benefit from a second tranche of funding being made available to facilitate the rollout of ultrafast broadband across UK cities.

Reacting to Jeremy Hunt’s announcement that Londonderry is one of twenty-seven cities to have been short-listed as eligible to bid for support from a £50million pot, Arlene Foster said: “I am delighted to see that Northern Ireland is continuing to benefit from national telecommunications infrastructure programmes, and at a time when the development of our economic infrastructure is critical to rebuilding the economy.

“This announcement is particularly timely as Londonderry is on the cusp of its UK City of Culture year. The challenge now is to ensure that the City secures an allocation that will allow it to build on the infrastructure investments that have already been completed, and to develop a plan that will demonstrate how super-connectivity will be used across Londonderry as a path to digital infrastructure-led growth.”

The Minister also sought to address any concern that the initiative comes at the expense of rural broadband provision.