Central Lancashire Plan Fibre Broadband Rule for New Build Homes

The Central Lancashire Local Plan (development strategy), which covers the geographical areas of Preston, Chorley and South Ribble, looks set to include a new measure that would require local property developers to ensure that all new build homes have “access to Superfast Broadband from the outset.”

At present any new build developments seeking planning permission in the UK are already required to be “equipped with a high-speed-ready in-building physical infrastructure, up to the network termination points” (EU rule adopted into UK legislation), although ensuring that enough spare cable ducts and access points are available is rather different from requiring broadband ISPs to actually make use of them.

The UK government has also long been advising councils to ensure that they factor the need for superfast broadband into local planning approvals, which in the future will be supported by the new Future Telecoms Infrastructure Review proposals (here).

The review promises it will guarantee “full fibre” (FTTP/H) ISP connections to new build developments (i.e. changes to streamline wayleaves and mandate fibre connections) but that could take time to filter down, not least because larger projects can spend years in planning before the work actually begins.

A number of councils have already implemented stricter policies to encourage superfast broadband as part of the planning process for new developments and, by the sounds of it, the Central Lancashire Local Plan (CLLP) is now looking to do the same.

According to a recent meeting of Chorley’s Overview and Scrutiny Committee (here), Planning and ICT officers recently attended a meeting outlining The Street Works Tool Kit which is a framework for UK Fibre Broadband Delivery. This confirmed that the CLLP “is to incorporate an appropriate policy about providing fibre broadband and allowing connection to the doorstep for all developments (end 2020).”

But in the shorter term a practice note for developers is to be prepared and/or planning conditions instigated, which will help to encourage uptake of the service by new developments. The CLLP Review team have also said that they plan to liaise with Openreach (BT) about serving new developments, both residential and commercial.

At this point it’s worth noting that most of the major home builders (e.g. Home Builders Federation) have already entered into partnerships with network operators (e.g. Openreach and Virgin Media etc.) in order to better facilitate the roll-out of fibre optic (FTTP/H) and hybrid fibre (FTTC / HFC DOCSIS) based broadband. Recent data shows that most new builds are getting better broadband but there’s room for improvement (here).

The first draft of the new CLLP is due to be published next spring 2019, although final adoption is still a long way off and set for Winter 2020 (assuming all goes well).