Baltic Creative CIC is one of 350 local businesses now benefiting from Mayor Steve Rotheram’s flagship LCR Connect project.

The 214 km gigabit-capable network is 95% complete and is already making a huge difference to local businesses. LCR Connect is a key element to make Liverpool City Region the most digitally connected region in the country.

Steve Rotheram, Mayor of the Liverpool City Region, said:

The hallmark of any modern, 21st century city region like ours is how it connects people with opportunity. In an increasingly digital world, LCR Connect is making sure that our businesses can keep pace with the fastest internet speeds in the country. It’s helping to attract new jobs and investment into the region and, best of all, it’s half owned by us.

The network supports Mayor Rotheram’s target to invest 5% of regional GVA on Research and Development (R&D) by 2030. The joint venture between Liverpool City Region Combined Authority, ITS Technology Group, and NGE is delivering the full fibre network across the six local authority areas of the Liverpool City Region.

The network will significantly improve connectivity for businesses and support internet access for schools and other organisations, making the city region among the best-connected areas of the UK.

The new 10-gigabit connection at Baltic Creative provides ultrafast broadband for the companies based at our creative and digital hub. The connection to Baltic Creative was made through FACTCO, a local internet service provider, and reseller for LCR Connect.

Fran Garforth, Property Officer at Baltic Creative, said:

We are excited to upgrade our broadband across the site! We were reaching capacity with our previous 1Gb supply and recognised we needed to support the increasing demand for bandwidth. Businesses need reliable and scalable digital connectivity and as a flexible workspace provider, we want to offer the best to our tenants. It will help us serve the businesses well, providing the stability and future proofing they need and helping us attract more bandwidth-heavy users.

A big thank you to FACTCO who always does a fantastic job. We appreciate having a service provider who is based just a mile away and always on hand when we need them, as well as a network which is majority locally owned. A win-win for keeping our spend in the city region, without deviating from the best quality connectivity!

N.B: This is an extract from the original press release. You can read the full version here.