The Chancellor of the Exchequer announced in the Autumn Statement the creation of a new £100 million Urban Broadband Fund (UBF) that will create up to ten super-connected cities across the UK with 80-100Mbps (megabits per second) broadband connectivity. That’s fast!

Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh, London and up to six further cities are going to receive support from the fund over the next three years to deliver these speeds.

I think that the ability of super-fast broadband is going to become a critical feature of our cities of the future. It is incredible to think that the internet is just a few years old and that, back then, we survived on dial up lines. But today most businesses are 100% reliant on the internet; either to communicate with itself or its clients. Our ability to gain information is critical.

If Nottingham wants to remain competitive then it needs to be on this new backbone. We need to lobby Government that this is essential. We have a fantastic creative quarter, centred on Antenna. For that to continue to grow it needs, as we all do, to have the very fastest connections we can get. I do know that my friends at Invest in Nottingham are coordinating Nottingham’s efforts to secure this for us.

It is not difficult to see that this is the future. As the capacity increases, the use of file sharing / collaborative working and video conferencing will become more useful. There is not doubt that our world is getting faster, travel times and costs are getting worse, so that points to a newer method of communication.

We are starting to get enquiries from occupiers that now include broadband connectivity as part of their wish list. This super-fast connectivity would give us a competitive advantage…