Binfield Heath UK Locals Raise £60k to Help BT Install FTTC Broadband

Residents of the isolated Binfield Heath village in Oxfordshire (England) have clubbed together to raise £60,000 in order to help cover some of BT’s costs for rolling out superfast broadband (FTTC) technology in the area, which currently suffers from internet download speeds of just 1Mbps or less.

The civil parish is home to around 650 people (2001 Census) and they all receive a service via the local telephone exchange in Caversham, which was recently upgraded to support BT’s latest up to 80Mbps capable Fibre-to-the-Cabinet (FTTC) technology. Unfortunately that same fibre service doesn’t reach the village.

According to The Telegraph, BT initially said that it could upgrade the village but that this would most likely cost upwards of £100,000 and required the locals to contribute around £30,000 towards the cost. Sadly this local contribution was later revised upwards to £60,000. Happily that hasn’t stopped the effort and amazingly the total amount pledged recently hit £59,575.

Keith Pruden, Binfield Heath Fast Broadband Project, said:

“The Parish Council had already decided at their meeting on Monday 25th February to issue a letter to all residents of Binfield Heath inviting them to subscribe to the broadband upgrade project. The next stage, therefore, is to convert your promised pledge into a cheque, made payable to the Clerk of the Parish Council, and sent to the Clerk before the 16th March so that the target to enter into the contract with BT by 31st March can be met.

The danger remains that if cheques fail to match the pledged indication we will have a shortfall of funding. If this occurs we will make a final appeal to those who have failed to match their pledge so that the project can proceed.”

It’s understood that around 120 homes (roughly 60% of the local households) have agreed to make pledges of between £100 and £1,500 and any excess funds will be used by the Parish Council for other future village projects. If approved locals expect to receive speeds of between 15Mbps and 50Mbps or more from the new service, which is useful because a large proportion apparently work from home.

ISPreview.co.uk separately notes that Countryside Broadband, a small local fixed wireless broadband ISP, has also recently made a pledge to expand its network coverage into Binfield Heath (here). Sadly their website isn’t terribly informative about whether or not any progress was ever made.