THE Cardiff Capital Region (CCR) Regional Cabinet today welcomed the decision by the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport to approve the CCR bid for £6million of funding from the Local Full Fibre Wave 2 Challenge Fund to enable improved digital connectivity in South-East Wales.

Councillor Anthony Hunt, Leader of Torfaen County Borough Council, and the CCR Cabinet’s portfolio leader on the digital strategy said: “The CCR has an aspiration to extend the “arc of innovation” that runs along the M4 corridor into the CCR, and a central theme within the CCR’s ambition is to deliver an outstanding digital infrastructure and wider ecosystem to support economic growth.

“We see this bid as very much the first step on a longer journey to foster a digitally connected region that will offer business a step-change in the services they are able to deliver and offer residents access to the services they deserve.

“We have a clear vision to develop an environment that will not only continue to attract industry leading enterprise into the area, but also encourage the development of SMEs that will complement and support this growth.

“Digital infrastructure is central to this vision as it will provide a platform to stimulate such growth, helping us to achieve our aspirations and to turn our longer term strategy into delivery.

Councillor Debbie Wilcox, Leader of Newport City Council, said: “I would like to place on record my thanks to the team who put this successful bid together.

“Improved digital connectivity is critical for people living and working in South-East Wales, and these projects are just the beginning of our long term strategy to ensure that our region is one of the most dynamic in the UK.”

The successful bid will contribute to the CCR’s plans to build on current investments as well as establishing a reputation for the region as one of the fastest growing tech hubs in the UK. In particular, it will support the CCR in:

exploring the case for direct international connectivity
the mobile infrastructure across 4G and 5G technologies that add value to existing provision
increasing Wi-Fi connectivity across the region
digital solutions to solve big problems around such issues as transport and housing
making the CCR a state of the art open data region
facilitating collaboration between public and private sector stakeholders to identify and exploit opportunities