PLEASE BE AWARE THAT THE GOVERMENT HAS RECENTLY REMOVED OUR AREA FROM ITS VOUCHER SCHEME, WHICH WOULD HAVE LARGELY FUNDED OUR SUPERFAST BROADBAND PROJECT. IT WAS ONLY WEEKS AWAY FROM THE START OF WORK ON LAYING THE FIRST FIBRE CABLES.
IF YOU FEEL DISAPPOINTED ABOUT THIS, PLEASE CONTACT OUR MP DR NEIL HUDSON, neil.hudson.mp@parliament.uk
The B4RN Warcop & Ormside working group have arranged a Public Meeting on Thursday 23rd March at 7:30pm at Warcop Parish Hall. A representative of B4RN will update residents on the progress of our project, answer any questions you may have and you can sign up if you so wish. Nearly 30% of residents of Warcop and Ormside have now signed up and we hope that even more will do so. A flier will be delivered to every home in the coming days with more details and you can also see it here:
There is a small working group looking at the potential for superfast broadband for Warcop and Ormside led by B4RN. A link to their website can be found below and also a link to their broadband spedchecker.
Below is the latest update from Dave Ryall showing that the scheme is moving forward positively and mentioning changes to government support:
• At a project review meeting this week B4RN took the decision that we are making strong enough progress to begin the transfer from Feasibility phase to Project Development. The detail of this is outlined in the Volunteer Handbook; most visible change will be that your B4RN primary contact and project manager will change from me to Stan Jenkins – he will take you to the point of build at which point you’ll be assigned a Build Project Coordinator who will manage the build and connect phase. I have invited Stan to our meeting on the 12th January and we’ve just had an in depth conversation about the project itself so he’s well informed. The Development phase is all about getting the signup to a financially viable level, and securing wayleaves to build the network (this also includes detailed surveys on the ground to ensure the planned routes are physically practicable).
• We aim to formally hand the project over to Development by the end of January and through January both Stan and I will both be involved as a ‘soft handover’. Once handed over I move on to the next new projects – but will be around to help if needed.
• We expect DCMS to confirm detail of the new voucher scheme on the 20th January, along with a new list of eligible properties. The new voucher value has been announced by DCMS as £4500 per property (irrespective of type) – which on the face of it is great news. There will be detail with this and that’s what we need to financially model the project. We will need to understand any property specific criteria (such as current speed), which postcodes are eligible in the new scheme, and what the maximum amount of voucher value for a project will be. It’s currently around 70% of the build cost, but that may change due to the change in individual property voucher values. All should become clear around the 20th and this will clear the way to the formal move to Development.
• B4RN has appointed a new person to lead our marketing effort, Sara Saul. She’ll be very keen to get involved supporting you to communicate the many benefits of better connectivity to your community! The move into Development is probably a good opportunity for a public update, so something to consider and collaborate on.
• When we hand a project into Development we invite the group members to our HQ near Kirkby Lonsdale to meet the members of the Development team you’ll be working with, have a look around and generally define next steps for everyone.