A multi-million pound broadband project has now started in a Kent town.

CityFibre's £50m investment aims to bring full-fibre connectivity within reach of almost every home and business in Maidstone.

Construction started on Thursday and is being delivered by Lanes-i on behalf of CityFibre.

The team said it will be working in close partnership with Kent County Council and local communities to deliver a fast rollout while managing potential disruption.

Each area usually takes a few weeks to complete, however, construction teams will typically be outside each home for two to three days.

CityFibre will be in touch with residents by post ahead of any work starting.

In October, Maidstone was announced as the second area to be chosen to receive the upgrade, with Sittingbourne being named a month prior.

The overall project is expected to be completed by 2027.

As the network is installed in each neighbourhood, CityFibre will designate homes "ready for service" – which means residents can choose to connect to full fibre-enabled broadband services when they go live.

A range of broadband providers are already onboard, including Vodafone, TalkTalk, Giganet, IDNet and Zen.

Anne Krausse, CityFibre’s area manager for Maidstone, said: “I’m incredibly proud to see our team start work on the full fibre network.

"As we roll out our infrastructure across the town, it’s important to remember that any short-term disruption will pay off tremendously in the long-term.

"Our network will help ensure that Maidstone is ready to thrive in the digital age by giving almost every home and business in the town access to the best available digital connectivity.”

Full fibre networks, unlike many of the copper-based fibre broadband services available today, use 100% full fibre to carry data at light speed all the way from the home to the point of connection.

This gives users speeds of up to 1,000 Mbps for upload and download.