More than 5,000 public buildings in the UK, including schools, hospitals, and libraries, have been connected to high-speed broadband through new investment.

The upgrades have been made possible by the £164-million UK Government level up programme, which looks to drive productivity and help boost business and public services across the UK, including Scotland.

Plans will look to create better experiences for people who use these services and encourage broadband companies to easily extend the network to thousands of surrounding homes and businesses which will boost the government’s national mission to grow the economy and create new jobs.

More than 350 public buildings in Scotland have been connected, including schools, health centres, and fire stations across Shetland, the Highlands, Angus, and Perth & Kinross.

The UK Government has also invested £133m in Scotland to connect more than 740,000 homes and businesses to superfast speeds of up to 30 megabits per second.

Other vital local services – including leisure centres, tourist destinations and youth centres – across the UK can now access internet speeds at least ten times faster than their old mostly copper-based connections.

The news comes as the government calls on broadband firms to submit bids to connect approximately 190,000 hard-to-reach premises in England as part of Project Gigabit – the biggest high-speed broadband roll-out funded by the government in the UK – with work set to kick off from January 2023.

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The future-proof connections delivered by Project Gigabit will fire up the economy by injecting a £60 billion boost to productivity.

An update has confirmed that there are now ​​contracts worth £543m in total for telecoms firms to bid for and this is expected to connect to 380,000 hard-to-reach homes and businesses with the first contracts awarded from August this year.

Commenting on the news, Digital Secretary Nadine Dorries said: “Fast and reliable broadband is vital to households, businesses, and the public services we rely on every day.

“That’s why, on top of our transformative £5bn Project Gigabit investment to improve rural connectivity, we have upgraded thousands of schools, libraries and hospitals across the UK to first class broadband fit for the future.”

The move to connect public buildings is part of the Local Full Fibre Networks (LFFN) programme which was launched five years ago to subsidise the cost of full fibre broadband connections in publicly owned buildings.

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