Projected broadband coverage for Worcestershire revealed

This colourful guide shows how large swathes of the county will be included in a groundbreaking £20m overhaul of internet connections.

The map, produced by Worcestershire County Council, shows the areas where a majority of households will benefit, as well as those set for a “partial” upgrade.

Green shows where the upgrade work will focus, blue means partial coverage and red is the commercial rollout zones.

Upton-upon-Severn, Evesham and Droitwich are included among the big winners.

Worcester, despite already being well served by fast connections, will benefit from investment as well as Malvern and Pershore.

The county council say the map is only an “indicative” one at this stage and will be subject to change as the plans are firmed up.

It is also in the process of creating a special section on its website so people can put in their postcode and find out how their exact location will fare.

Bosses say such is the insatiable appetite for news, the map has been revealed early to give people an idea of how the much-anticipated plans are shaping up.

The project, done in conjunction with BT, will see 90 per cent of the county and 55,000 homes and business get superfast speeds.

The speed, defined as anything above 24 megabytes per second is enough to download huge files, watch films or music videos and flick through web pages instantly.

Councillor Simon Geraghty, deputy leader and the cabinet member responsible for the economy, skills and infrastructure said: “We recognise how important faster broadband is to local people and for businesses to plan ahead.”

Nine months of planning and technical work is now about to start which will firm up the locations for the underground cables.

That means the map could change as workers bump into anything from blocked or collapsed ducts to archealogical finds.

Rob Shakespeare, BT’s senior project manager for Worcestershire, said: “This is a big job and includes surveying all the underground ducts serving homes and businesses in the area.

“We’ll then draw up a plan for where the fibre, new ducts, street cabinets and additional underground and overground equipment goes.”

The three-year project has been funded with £8.5m of taxpayers’ cash, £3.35m from the Government and £8.9m from BT.

West Worcestershire Harriett Baldwin MP said: “I will continue to push for rapid progress, more detail on timings and delivery and a plan to reach the final ten per cent in the fastest possible time.”

Some areas, including Little Witley, villages in north west Malvern and Tetbury, are already benefitting from a separate £700,000 faster broadband project done by Airband UK.