Broadband Access Programme(BAP)

The BAP

Hartlepower is delighted to announce the awarding of funding from both the County Durham Community Foundation and the National Lottery to help us combat the effects of the Corona virus both on our own operation and in the wider the community.

With regard to the latter, and in particular,we have in the course of our work recently come across many families and individuals without access to the internet, indeed without a computer or tablet.  The term ‘digitally excluded’ is now being used to refer to such people- and we have thanks to the two funders a solution to the problem; the Broadband Access Programme(BAP), which,once proven,could be ‘rolled-out’across the country.

It involves working with our voluntary sector partners ,the local authority and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation in identifying especially disadvantaged people,providing them with a free router and a low cost broadband connection with ‘easy in/easy out’ terms,‘pay as you go’ and just for 30 days at a time and,the icing on the cake, unlimited broadband! 

Often people on low incomes are, understandably, wary of entering into even a twelve month contract:the BAP gets around this.Initially,200 homes in Hartlepool and Redcar will benefit, with more planned given the success of the project.