THE Cardiff Capital Region (CCR) Regional Cabinet today welcomed the decision by the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport to approve the CCR bid for ÂŁ6million of funding from the Local Full Fibre Wave 2 Challenge Fund to enable improved digital connectivity in South-East Wales.
Councillor Anthony Hunt, Leader of Torfaen County Borough Council, and the CCR Cabinet’s portfolio leader on the digital strategy said: “The CCR has an aspiration to extend the “arc of innovation” that runs along the M4 corridor into the CCR, and a central theme within the CCR’s ambition is to deliver an outstanding digital infrastructure and wider ecosystem to support economic growth.
“We see this bid as very much the first step on a longer journey to foster a digitally connected region that will offer business a step-change in the services they are able to deliver and offer residents access to the services they deserve.

“We have a clear vision to develop an environment that will not only continue to attract industry leading enterprise into the area, but also encourage the development of SMEs that will complement and support this growth.
“Digital infrastructure is central to this vision as it will provide a platform to stimulate such growth, helping us to achieve our aspirations for the region, and turn the long term strategy into delivery.”
The successful bid will contribute to the CCR’s plans to build on current investments as well as establishing a reputation for the region as one of the fastest growing tech hubs in the UK. In particular, it will support the CCR in:
• exploring the case for direct international connectivity
• the mobile infrastructure across 4G and 5G technologies that add value to existing provision 

• increasing Wi-Fi connectivity across the region

• digital solutions to solve big problems around such issues as transport and housing
• making the CCR a state of the art open data region 

• facilitating collaboration between public and private sector stakeholders to identify and exploit opportunities