MORE high-speed fibre broadband is on its way to homes and businesses, BT has confirmed.

The provider says its £2.5 billion investment in UK broadband will include Worcester city centre, Evesham and Malvern.

Openreach, BT’s local network business, will carry out the work between this month and the end of spring next year.

“Our commitment to provide super-fast broadband speeds is well underway in the county and today’s news of further local investment from BT, this time in North Worcestershire, is very welcome,” said Councillor Simon Geraghty, Worcestershire County Council’s deputy leader and cabinet member for economy, skills and infrastructure.

“More and more people and businesses want fibre broadband to help them go about their online activities even faster and better.

“Superfast broadband is vital to our county’s future economy, as increased broadband speeds will support and boost the competitiveness of local businesses, keep skills and job prospects local and provide yet another reason for businesses to come to Worcestershire.”

The scheme is an expansion to BT’s commercial rollout programme in Worcestershire and different to that announced by Worcestershire County Council earlier this month. That project will see £8.5 million of taxpayers’ cash, £3.35 million from the Government and £8.9m from BT ploughed into a three-year scheme for faster broadband.

According to the regulator Ofcom, the current average UK residential broadband download speed is 14.7 megabytes per second (mbps).

With fibre, households can download music in minutes or watch catch-up TV, stream HD or 3D movies and post photos and videos to social network sites in seconds.

For businesses, firms can speed up file and data transfers, talk to colleagues and customers on conference and video calls, and allow staff to work as effectively from home as they would in the office.