Gigaclear Bring 1Gbps Full Fibre to 4 Rural Forest of Dean Villages

Some 1,274 homes and businesses across the remote rural Gloucestershire villages of Highnam, Maisemore, Tibberton and Upleadon (i.e. the Forest of Dean district) can now access a 1Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband connection after UK ISP Gigaclear completed their rollout in the communities.

The work forms part of Gigaclear’s state aid supported deployment under Phase 2 of the Fastershire programme, which despite some big delays (here) will eventually see their “full fibre” network being extended to cover around 70,000 premises across rural parts of both Gloucestershire and Herefordshire.

Overall the provider claims to have installed a total of nearly 83km of fibre optic cabling to connect the four villages, which were “previously considered too remote to reach with a network of this kind” (this is roughly the distance from the Forest of Dean to Weston-Super-Mare). Sadly no details about the cost of this deployment were revealed, although we assume the new cable may help to reach other areas too.

Upleadon Village Hall is one of those already benefiting from the connection. Built in 1906, the old school building was revived several years ago and opened as the village hall serving over 60 homes in the community. In September 2019, Gigaclear connected the hall to its service for free as part of its Village Hub Scheme.

Peter Pentecost, Regional General Manager at Gigaclear, said:

“The village hall is such an important amenity for people living close by, which is why we offered to connect the property for free. Our Village Hub Scheme aims to support the key meeting places in the areas where we’ve built our ultrafast network. It’s something we now plan to roll out in all the villages that we’ll be setting live over the coming weeks.

We’re extremely proud to be serving these villages and are looking forward to reaching more areas in the Forest of Dean soon, empowering rural communities with better broadband.”

Rt Hon Mark Harper, MP for the Forest of Dean, said:

“I welcome the work that Gigaclear are doing as part of the Fastershire project and I was pleased to visit Tibberton recently to see the progress that has been made to provide ultrafast broadband to my constituents living there.

As well as Tibberton, the service is live in Highnam, Upleadon and Maisemore, and I know residents are already seeing the benefits.

I will continue to fully support the roll out across the Forest of Dean and I am pleased to hear that progress is being made to connect communities in Minsterworth, Longhope, Littledean and Cinderford over the next few months.”

We haven’t seen an update on Gigaclear’s revised build plan for the Fastershire scheme in awhile, although earlier this year it was suggested that they may not fully complete their local rollout contract until January 2022.