Digital connectivity is no longer a question of convenience for businesses. It is part of the basic operating environment in which firms compete, adapt, manage costs and reach customers.
That is easy to say, but harder to deliver in a region such as Mid Wales where geography, population density and commercial realities can make digital infrastructure more difficult to roll out than in more urban parts of the UK. Mid Wales has strong businesses, ambitious entrepreneurs and land-based sectors with significant potential, but too often the technology available to them does not match that ambition.
The Growing Mid Wales Digital Programme exists to address that gap. The programme forms part of the wider Growing Mid Wales portfolio and the Mid Wales Growth Deal, which is jointly led by Ceredigion County Council and Powys County Council, with funding from the UK Government and Welsh Government.
Infrastructure on its own is not the full answer. Better connectivity creates the conditions for change, but businesses also need the confidence, capability and practical support to understand what digital tools can do for them. The programme is therefore focused not only on access, but on exploitation: helping businesses use digital infrastructure to improve productivity, competitiveness and long-term resilience.
We are not here to duplicate commercial investment or overlap with existing UK Government or Welsh Government programmes. The programme is designed to provide additionality, complementing what is already happening and focusing on areas where clear gaps remain.
In Mid Wales no single intervention will fix every connectivity challenge across the region. The terrain, the spread of communities and the economics of deployment all shape what is possible. Commercial rollout has an important role to play, as do other publicly funded schemes, but there will still be places and sectors where additional action is needed.
At the moment, two projects are especially relevant to businesses across the region.
The first is the Business Park Full Fibre to the Premises project, being delivered by BT. This is bringing gigabit-capable broadband of up to 1 Gbps to priority business parks across Mid Wales that are not included in existing commercial or public rollout plans. The initial rollout includes 14 business parks, with wider benefits expected as the network extends to nearby homes and businesses.
For businesses based on those parks, the significance is practical. Reliable, high-capacity connectivity affects how firms use cloud services, communicate with customers, handle data, manage online sales, support flexible working and adopt new digital systems. For growing companies, it can influence decisions about where to locate, how to expand and whether they can compete on equal terms with businesses elsewhere.
The network will be open access, which means businesses will be able to choose from a range of internet service providers. That is important because it gives firms flexibility and promotes competition, rather than tying the benefit of public investment to a single retail route.
Alongside the infrastructure, BT will also deliver digital skills support through workshops and tailored guidance for SMEs. That support recognises a simple reality: businesses are more likely to benefit from improved connectivity when they understand how it can be applied to their own operations.
The second project is focused on LoRaWAN technology. This is about helping businesses adopt smart, low-power digital technologies, with grants of up to £4,999 and hands-on support from Antur Cymru.
For many businesses, particularly in rural and land-based sectors, the opportunity here is not simply to become “more digital” in an abstract sense. It is about using technology in ways that are relevant to how they work. Low-power sensors and connected devices can open up new ways of collecting information, monitoring assets and making operational decisions. The programme is designed so that businesses do not need prior technical knowledge to explore those possibilities.
That point is central to the programme’s wider purpose. The barrier is not always infrastructure alone. In some cases, it is confidence. In others, it is time, knowledge or the ability to see how a particular technology applies to a particular business. By combining funding with practical support, the LoRaWAN project is intended to help firms move from awareness to action.
For Mid Wales, this is about creating opportunity across a diverse regional economy. A business in a town, a rural enterprise, a firm based on a business park and a land-based operation may all have different digital needs, but they share the same underlying requirement: the ability to access and use technologies that support resilience and growth.
The Growing Mid Wales Digital Programme is not pretending that one programme can solve every connectivity issue in the region. What it can do is identify where intervention is needed, focus investment where it adds value, and help businesses make practical use of the infrastructure and networks being put in place.
Dave Owen speaks about this and more on Unlocking Mid Wales, the Growing Mid Wales podcast. Listen here:
