Broadband Trails Doctors as the Most Important Factor for New Communities

A new study of 2,000 UK people by residential housing developer Redrow has claimed that the most important factor which goes toward creating a community is access to a local doctor’s surgery (99.5%), which was followed by “high-speed broadband” (98.1%).

The study stems from Redrow’s inaugural report – ‘Creating Britain’s New Communities’, which also found that 81% of respondents do not think the Government is currently doing enough to build communities as part of its home-building plan. “Ensuring the development and growth of an area requires more than just bricks and mortar; but also the infrastructure, jobs and economic stimulus to create communities,” said the report.

Rob Macdiarmid, Redrow’s Group Sustainability Director, said:

“The way we work is changing with people increasingly needing, and preferring, to work remotely outside of the traditional office. Working at home requires high quality digital infrastructure to be in place and we are finding the integration of high-speed broadband into new communities is becoming increasingly important.”

The Government has said that the United Kingdom needs on average 250,000 new homes a year for the rest of the decade but many people feel as if there’s too much focus on the construction side and not enough on establishing a vibrant community.

Overall 87% of the 2,000 consumers questioned as part of Redrow’s survey said that being part of a community is important to them. However, at odds with this, a significant minority (one quarter) of respondents said they don’t currently live as part of a community. Never the less, living as part of a community was important to both countryside (88%) and city dwellers (86%).

However, the reality did indicate a disjoint between country and city dwellers in terms of whether they feel they are part of a community. Of the respondents, 71% of city dwellers said they currently live in a community but in rural areas this increased to 85%. Obviously rural areas are smaller and tend to be much more tightly knit, which fosters a strong community atmosphere.

So what are the most important factors in creating communities which promote social well-being? Within the top 10 important community features there are a total of three health-related amenities or services – easy access to a doctor’s surgery, hospital and health visitor. Interestingly easy access to a doctor’s surgery tops the table, beating even a hospital. Meanwhile high-speed broadband is a close 2nd.

Despite this, the report claims that as a country we have a “poor track record at a global level of achieving excellent levels of broadband coverage” and it calls for more “improvements at a national level [and more effort] from the homebuilding industry to partner with broadband providers on provision for new communities at the earliest possible opportunity.”

Redrow has of course already partnered up with Virgin Media (here) and similarly Openreach (BT) are offering free FTTP broadband to developments of 30+ homes. On top of that all new developments of multiple properties are, since the end of last year, now required to include the need for superfast broadband connectivity into their plans (here) but this doesn’t help existing developments.