£9900 Grant Helps B4RN Rollout 1Gbps Broadband to Barbon and Middleton

The rural villages of Barbon and Middleton in Cumbria have today won a grant of £9,900 from the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority and its Sustainable Development Fund (SDF), which will be used to help B4RN roll-out a 1Gbps community-built FTTH network. JFDI.

At present B4RN’s (Broadband for the Rural North) community built and funded Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH/P) network has already connected well over 2,500 premises around remote rural parts of Lancashire, Cumbria and Yorkshire in England (here). Customers typically pay just £30 per month for the 1000Mbps (symmetrical) unlimited service and there’s also a one-off connection fee of £150.

The network, which is supported by a strong team of local community volunteers who help to build the infrastructure (usually in exchange for shares in B4RN), is almost constantly expanding and today’s news is another perfect example. Last April 2016 residents from two small villages in the Lune Valley – Barbon and Middleton – joined forces with B4RN to create the B4RN Barbon and Middleton Community Group.

Both villages are about 2.2 miles apart (Middleton is directly north of Barbon) and linked by the A683 road. Since being established the new community group has already made fantastic progress, with the first 15 properties (8 live) being connected in Barbon during November 2016 via a mix of either 1Gbps FTTH/P or an ‘up to’ 200-300Mbps WiFi solution (community hotspot).

However the project has today received a big boost thanks to the YDNPA’s new grant of £9,900. Apparently this extra investment will enable them to fund the cost of the main fibre optic control cabinet at Barbon Village Hall, that serves both Barbon and Middleton communities, plus links forward to Dent and Garsdale where B4RN has also been busy.

Chris Clark, YDNPA Champion for Sustainable Development, said:

“This is the eighth B4RN community broadband project that we have been able to support with the Authority’s Sustainable Development Fund, investing a total of £81,000 in improved broadband infrastructure in the National Park.

Access to good quality broadband is critical to strong, self-reliant and balanced communities and is a real challenge for small, remote communities that have been overlooked in the national roll-out so far. These are exactly the sort of projects our Sustainable Development Fund is designed to support.”

Kevin Taylor, Chairman of the B4RN Barbon and Middleton Community Group, said:

“This project just goes to show what a community can achieve when everyone pulls together. As well as enjoying the benefits of hyperfast broadband ourselves, we are future proofing our two rural communities.”

We should again highlight that the vast majority of funding for this roll-out (around 70%) has already been raised by local residents (the project has a target of about £130,000) and so the extra £9,900 should put it very close to being fully funded.

The cost per house to build the system in Barbon is currently about £690, although this falls as the percentage of take-up increases. We note that Barbon is home to around 240 people, while Middleton is much smaller and appears to be mostly a sparse farming community.

Meanwhile B4RN continue to roll-out in other areas too and they hope to have 3,000 active connections by the end of April 2017. Long may it continue.

Pictured: Left to Right = Kevin Taylor (B4RN Barbon and Middleton Community Group Chairman), Mike Kingsbury (Treasurer to the Community Group) and Carl Lis (Chairman of Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority).