The first development in the project will see more than one million hard to reach homes and businesses receive ‘next generation gigabit broadband’.

The new broadband connections will offer available speeds of up to 1,000 megabits or one gigabit per second and are designed to help with the recovery from the pandemic and with growth and levelling up in these areas of the UK.

Up to 510,000 homes and businesses in Cambridgeshire, Cornwall, Cumbria, Dorset, Durham, Essex, Northumberland, South Tyneside and Tees Valley will be the first to benefit and contracts for these first areas will be offered out in the spring with ‘spades in the ground’ in the first half of 2022.

This will be followed in June 2022 with connection projects for 640,000 premises in Norfolk, Shropshire, Suffolk, Worcestershire, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight.

The plans also state that £110m will be spent to help connect 7,000 rural GP surgeries, libraries and schools to the new broadband. The government will also relaunch the voucher scheme at a rate of £210m to help those with slow speeds.

Originally launched in 2018, the scheme provided eligible areas across the UK with vouchers to cover the installation costs of bringing gigabit connectivity to people’s homes and businesses. So far 66,000 vouchers worth up to £127m have been issued to premises across the UK.

Culture secretary Oliver Dowden said: ‘Project Gigabit is our national mission to plug in and power up every corner of the UK and get us Gigabit fit for the future.

‘We have already made rapid progress, with almost 40% of homes and businesses now able to access next-generation gigabit speeds, compared to just 9% in 2019. Now we are setting out our plans to invest £5bn in remote and rural areas so that no one is left behind by the connectivity revolution.’

The new vouchers worth up to £1,500 for residents and up to £3,500 for businesses went live on 8 April 2021 and the Department for Digital, Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) will continue to engage with local bodies and government departments to identify suitable projects, and expects the first of these to be progressed this summer.

Greg Mesch, CEO of CityFibre, said: ‘Project Gigabit is another welcome accelerant that will propel the UK towards a full fibre future, supporting economic growth and levelling up opportunity right across the country. As the nation’s largest independent full fibre platform, with a build programme underway to a third of the UK market, CityFibre is ready to extend our network even further to reach rural communities. We look forward to participating in this important programme to ensure no one is left behind.’