Culture secretary urges councils to reveal broadband plans

Maria Miller wants residents and businesses to know what broadband speeds to expect in the near future

All authorities should reveal which areas are in line for broadband upgrades, according to the culture secretary Maria Miller.

Currently the plans are generally not made public for reasons of commercial sensitivity, but in a letter to local councils seen by The Daily Telegraph, Miller urged authorities to let residents and businesses know whether their broadband speeds will improve in the near future. This will then allow communities to investigate how they can best fill any gaps.

The move comes after Malcolm Corbett, CEO of the Independent Networks Co-operative Association, slammed BT for withholding information on the last 10 per cent of rural broadband projects at a Public Accounts Committee (PAC) hearing.

In response, BT said it had no objection to publishing details of where it planned to upgrade networks and said that it was local councils who were blocking the moves.

Miller is thought to have met with community groups and BT earlier this month in a bid to resolve the issue.

In the letter, Miller said: "Concerns have been raised about whether information on the areas which will, or will not, be covered by the current projects can be made available. This information will help other broadband providers and community groups determine whether it is worth their while to develop local broadband projects to fill in gaps in coverage. It will also help clarify the position of those community broadband projects whose schemes are already planned in some detail. I am keen to see this information made available."

The culture secretary, who took over from Jeremy Hunt in September 2012, added that more publicly available data on the projects should be published as the projects progress.

"Significant numbers of premises will be in the ‘to be confirmed' category and coverage will depend on the precise rollout plans for each local area, which will be developed over a period of time. Provided these limitations are made clear, my strong preference is for this information to be made available," she wrote.

The government's goal is to have 95 per cent of premises covered by "superfast" broadband by 2017.