Government to fund fast Cheshire women

Businesswomen in Cheshire have been given a £75,000 boost to help them take advantage of the latest digital technologies.

Connecting Cheshire, a partnership bringing fibre broadband to Cheshire, has been granted £75,000 from the Government to help women in business across the county learn how to exploit the benefits of faster broadband and digital technology.

Nicky Morgan MP, the Minister for Women, announced Connecting Cheshire was among the successful projects to be awarded funding as part of the Women and Broadband Challenge Fund.

The fund was recently established to help female entrepreneurs and women-led businesses to take advantage of the UK's broadband infrastructure in order to work more effectively, access new markets and grow business online. A package of specialist support and events will be provided to help Cheshire businesses as part of the project.

Working with its partners and organisations across the county, Connecting Cheshire plans to focus on female entrepreneurs in rural and semi-rural areas, that will benefit from the Connecting Cheshire fibre broadband roll-out, as well as female-led businesses in the retail, creative industries and the visitor economy sectors, to ensure they can get the most of the opportunities that digital technology and faster broadband offers.

In the North West, there is lower than average female self-employment at just five per cent, compared to 6.2 per cent for England (Source: ONS Annual Population Survey 2013, supplied by NOMIS June 2014) and participation rates in the Connecting Cheshire Business Support Programme events has demonstrated that female-owned businesses attending are in the minority.

The project is expected to start in September 2014 and run for six months.

Information about Connecting Cheshire is available here. To find out more about the Connecting Cheshire Superfast Business Programme, visit here

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