Gigaclear Starts Build of 1Gbps Ultrafast Broadband in Rural Leicestershire

Pure fibre optic broadband provider Gigaclear has announced that they’ve exceeded their pre-order threshold for a group of rural villages in the Welland Valley area of Leicestershire (England), which means that they can now proceed to build their first 1000Mbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network in the county.

The villages of Blaston, Bringhurst, Cranoe, Drayton, Glooston, Hallaton, Horninghold, Medbourne, Nevill Holt, Slawston and Stockerston are all currently on Gigaclear’s roll-out list for the area and these are supported by the local Welland Valley Broadband Group (WVBG).

Sadly Gigaclear’s update doesn’t offer a clear timetable for the work, although the WVBG reports that contractors have been provisionally booked in to start work at the end of this month (i.e. anytime now).

It’s worth pointing out that Gigaclear’s original announcement of interest in the area (here) also listed several bordering villages in Northamptonshire (Ashley, Brampton Ash, Dingley, Stoke Albany, Sutton Bassett and Weston by Welland), which haven’t been mentioned in today’s update; although we suspect there will be separate news on them shortly.

Matthew Hare, CEO of Gigaclear, said:

“When a community gets together and creates a motivated, dynamic team of local champions as they have in the Welland Valley Broadband Group, it makes it possible for us to bring our service to very rural areas. The Welland Valley in Leicestershire is made up of many small villages and hamlets spread out over a large area.

The champions in the Welland Valley Broadband Group have worked alongside our own team to build the demand to the point where the business case works for us, to build a new Ultrafast pure fibre network across the whole area. We look forward to transforming the online experience for residents and businesses in the Welland Valley this summer.”

Tom Purnell, Assistant CEO of Leicestershire County Council, said:

“I am delighted that Gigaclear has committed to bring its ultrafast fibre broadband to rural Leicestershire. The villages Gigaclear will be rolling out to include significant areas that are not part of any other commercial or subsidised plan. This investment will transform the connected lives of businesses and communities in some of the most rural parts of the County.”

It’s interesting to note Tom Purnell’s comment that Gigaclear’s deployment includes villages that are “not part of any other commercial or subsidised plan“, although at the same time we see that Bringhurst was listed last year (only a couple of weeks before Gigaclear unveiled their plan) as being included under the local Superfast Leicestershire project with BT (here).