Blocked Drains and Flooding Gripes Hit Cityfibre’s FTTH Rollout in Stirling

Fibre optic network builder Cityfibre has once again faced complaints from a pocket of residents in the village of Cambusbarron (arguably a suburb), which is part of the operator’s £10m deployment in Stirling (Scotland) of a new 1Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) broadband network; supported by UK ISP partner Vodafone.

At the start of this year we reported that locals in Cambusbarron had complained about a “lack of communication and lack of respect” from the operator’s contractors (here), which largely stemmed from disruption due to road closures and frustration after some locals felt as if they hadn’t been well enough informed about the work that would be taking place.

Fast forward several months and the village is currently set to be one of the first areas to go live in Stirling at the end of this month, with Bannockburn, Raploch, Riverside, Braehead, Broomridge and the Bridge of Allan due to follow over the coming months.

Unfortunately locals in Cambusbarron, where work is still on-going, have kicked off again (Daily Record) to complain that they’re being left with a “very untidy village” due to a mix of gripes related to allegedly blocked drains (i.e. bunged up with construction materials), flooding in areas where such problems didn’t exist before, gravel and rubble left on pavements (safety concerns) and mud on walkways.

Elaine Doherty, CityFibre’s City Manager for Stirling, said:

“Our construction team will shortly complete the build programme in Cambusbarron – making the area the first in Stirling to receive gigabit-capable full fibre internet directly to the home.

We aim to carry out reinstatement works to a high standard and are working closely with our contractor and the council’s roads team to ensure the Cambusbarron reinstatement is meeting these standards.

Following completion, we will carry out a final walk through with the council and take action should any outstanding issues be identified.

If residents have any concerns, we encourage them to contact us. Throughout our time in Cambusbarron we have engaged with a host of residents and businesses and it is clear that excitement for full fibre is high. We look forward to connecting the first residents at the end of April.”

Deploying new fixed line broadband infrastructure is inevitably both a very expensive and highly disruptive civil engineering exercise, which will often attract complaints no matter who is doing the street works. In this case a quick look at the local area shows that Cityfibre’s work is very much widespread and still on-going across Cambusbarron, with most of the plans being due to finish by 23rd April 2019.

In the long run the ability to access affordable 1Gbps broadband speeds should make it all worthwhile and may even boost the value of local housing, as well as the economy.