VIDEO Essex and Suffolk Water Gift £750k for Superfast Broadband in 6 Villages

The disruption caused to locals by Essex and Suffolk Water’s £150 million development to enhance the Abberton Reservoir (e.g. installation of two large raw water pipelines and a new pumping station) has resulted in a gift of £750,000 to help six rural villages get superfast broadband.

A report on ITV earlier this week revealed that the water companies had setup a £750k fund to compensation locals of Peldon, Abberton, Langenhoe, Great and Little Wigborough, Salcott Cum Virley and Layer Breton for all the annoyance. Apparently it was then decided that the cash would be spent on rolling out a new superfast broadband service.

The project does not currently appear to be a part of the local BDUK and BT supported Superfast Essex scheme and when we asked BT’s chief network architect about it, Neil McRae, he appeared not to know. BT would be a logical choice for a fixed line upgrade in the area and £750k sounds like it might get most of it done, although equally the locals might have a wireless alternative in mind. At present it’s too early to say.

UPDATE 10:25am

Credits to Thinkbroadband for spotting that this scheme was first touted last spring (here) and appears to be based off a £64k grant rather than the whole £750k as suggested by some other articles. Wireless ISP County Broadband, which has partnered with Colchester Council, aim to install the up to 64Mbps connection via a small antenna at the top of Peldon church tower.