Gigaclear Start East Gloucestershire UK Project Gigabit Broadband Rollout

Rural broadband provider Gigaclear, which has already deployed their full fibre (FTTP) network to cover 612,000 UK premises, has this morning finally announced the start of their roll-out under Project Gigabit’s East Gloucestershire (Lot 18) contract. The £10.81m deployment is currently expected to help upgrade 3,547 premises in hard to reach areas.

The original contract was first awarded all the way back in February 2024 (here) and was initially valued at £16.6m (state aid), with a goal of extending gigabit-capable broadband to an additional 4,400 premises in remote rural areas. But this shrank in size during August 2025 “due to [the] removal of 899 premises” from its scope (here) and ended up being valued at £10.81m – possibly due to nearby commercial builds reaching more premises than expected or some of the premises were too expensive to tackle.

Quite why it’s taken this long for Gigaclear to announce the start of their construction phase for Lot 18 remains unclear, but today’s update does confirm that the first homes and businesses are already live. The roll-out is expected to reach a total of 18 rural communities across rural East Gloucestershire and was originally expected to reach completion by Spring 2027 (it’s unclear if this target still stands).

The locations include Alderton, Andoversford, Aston Somerville, Brockhampton, Cold Aston, Coln St Aldwyns, Great Rissington, Hawling, Kemble, Lower Slaughter, Miserden, North Cerney, Quenington, Stanton, Tarlton, Teddington, Upper Slaughter and Woodmancote.

Nathan Rundle, CEO of Gigaclear, said:

“Gloucestershire’s rural communities have too often struggled with slow and unreliable internet, limiting access to vital services, remote working opportunities and digital learning. Our work under Project Gigabit allows us to tackle that head on, extending our network and delivering ultrafast broadband where it’s needed most.

With work already started and our first connections already live, we’re excited to bring meaningful digital transformation to the county.”

Telecoms Minister, Liz Lloyd, said:

“Families and businesses in Gloucestershire are saying farewell to outdated internet, as we connect communities across the region to lightning-fast, reliable broadband. This will mean more families accessing healthcare services, ticking off life admin and working from home online more easily, and more businesses plugging into the growth opportunities of the digital economy.”

The press release does, however, mistakenly state that Project Gigabit aims to “achieve nationwide [c.99% coverage] gigabit-capable coverage by 2030“, which overlooks that the Government recently delayed this target by two years to 2032. The UK is currently at about the 88%+ coverage mark (here).

Residential customers of the service currently pay from £19 a month (£48 after 18-months) for a symmetric 300Mbps broadband package, which rises to £49 (£85 after 18-months) for their top 900Mbps plan. All packages include a wireless router and “free installation“, although the small print mentions that a £30 activation fee is currently applicable (this should really be stated more clearly, not in the small print).