60,000 more homes and businesses in Staffordshire to get £24m broadband boost

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Around 60,000 more homes and businesses in Staffordshire are set to benefit from a broadband boost as part of a £24 million investment by Openreach.

People living and working a number of locations – including Cheslyn Hay, Heath Hayes, Rugeley and Stafford – are all set to benefit from the national upgrade plan, which will take place between now and 2026, with the majority of premises in each area gaining access to ultrafast full fibre broadband.

The news comes hot on the heels of a similar announcement last month, when 185,000 premises – in mainly rural and harder to serve areas across the West Midlands – were also included in Openreach’s build plan.

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Kasam Hussain, Openreach’s regional director for the West Midlands, said: “Nobody in the UK is building full fibre faster, further or at a higher quality than Openreach.

“We’re reaching more communities than ever and our team of highly-skilled engineers, alongside our build partners, are working hard to deliver some of the fastest and most reliable broadband available anywhere in the world.

“Just last month we announced 82 rural and hard to reach locations across the West Midlands were to benefit, so it’s great that we’re able to reveal another huge broadband boost for the region with these additional locations.

“The latest details and timescales are available on our website as the build planning progresses.”

Following a competitive tender process, Warwick-headquartered Telent were chosen by Openreach to support the upgrades and will play a crucial role in building the new network to thousands of premises.

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Ric Welsby, managing director of Telent Infrastructure Services, said: “We are very pleased to be supporting Openreach in the build of this ultrafast and ultra-reliable full fibre broadband network.

“The long-term contracts we have been awarded allow us to recruit the people we need to provide an excellent service to Openreach.

“We have many exciting roles to fill, I would encourage anyone who is interested in working on this important national infrastructure project to visit our website.”

More than five million homes and businesses in the West Midlands already have access to full fibre broadband. Once everyone is connected, it is expected to create a £4.5 billion boost to the region.