Rother District Council would like to encourage communities across the District to take advantage of the governments Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme https://gigabitvoucher.culture.gov.uk/
We understand the purpose of the scheme is to increase the speed of deployment of full fibre in rural areas of the UK and to encourage suppliers to invest in gigabit capable services. This is a scheme for homes and businesses in rural areas with broadband speeds of less than 100Mbps.
Group projects are when two or more residents and/or SMEs get together to combine their vouchers towards the shared cost of installation. Single connections are not eligible for additional funding. New connections should double your current speed but must be at least 30Mbps. The scheme provides micro-grants in the form of vouchers to support the cost of new connectivity. The voucher is a benefit to eligible homes and small to medium-sized businesses in group schemes, where a group is two premises or more.
The process sounds fairly straight forward, residents find a registered supplier and sign up for a gigabit connection. In this case, Openreach are the registered supplier and they would come and quote for the work: Community Fibre Partnerships (openreach.com)
Openreach requests a voucher from the DCMS who check the residents are happy to go ahead. The supplier delivers the new connection, the supplier lets DCMS know the work is done, the service is checked and the resident pays for the new broadband package.
