It is difficult to give a financial figure for that, but Mr Greene is correct that there are three different groups. He mentioned the two principal ones—the R100 programme and the commercial build. Through the open market review process, the Scottish Government gathered information about the commercial superfast plans to which Mr Greene alluded, and that informs our intervention in the area. However, the operators do not tell us how much they are spending to deliver the coverage, so that bit is difficult for us. There is no mechanism for us to obtain that information, which is deemed to be commercially confidential for each of the developers.
Extensive work has been undertaken to evaluate the likely cost of delivering broadband vouchers. I have access to a figure, which I can supply to the committee, for the anticipated commercial roll-out, although that is being adjusted.
As I mentioned in the statement that I gave to Parliament following the announcement of the contracts, we have to take account of the latest available information about commercial build in each of the two areas for which we have already contracted. BT has adjusted its design to make sure that it is not using our money to cover areas where broadband will be delivered by commercial developers. We can provide the committee with some figures if that would be helpful.
I have some figures with me now. They might be out of date, but they give some indication. In the central lot, which covers much of central Scotland—broadly, south of Dundee, Doune and Stirling—there were originally 1.938 million premises that needed to be targeted and 1.737 million that had already been connected. We were aware of 102,000 premises that were being connected by commercial developers. That left about 55,000 premises for us to tackle through the R100 procurement process.
I will repeat the figures that I have given in the chamber if that would be helpful. We will deliver to 87 per cent of those 55,000 properties through the central R100 contract. The relatively small number that remain—just over 7,000 premises—will have to be delivered to through our aligned interventions. I hope that that gives a sense of the scale and where we have got to. We knew of over 100,000 premises that were going to be connected commercially at the point when the OMR was done for the central area. We are topping that up with the R100 programme where properties require subsidy in order to be addressed.
The equivalent figures for the south area, which is a much smaller area in terms of population, are that there were 198,979 premises, of which 156,165 properties had already been connected, and we knew of just over 10,600 commercially planned investments across the south of Scotland. That left just over 26,000 premises, as I mentioned in the chamber, of which 99 per cent will get a full-fibre solution.
I hope that that gives the context, but we can provide figures to the committee following this meeting, and we will be able to provide figures as the design is finalised later in the year.