Fresh Broadband Delays Hit Gigaclear’s Herefordshire UK Rollout

The Fastershire project has revealed that UK ISP Gigaclear’s rollout of a new gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network in Herefordshire is suffering from “delivery challenges,” which without “significant additional resources” could make it difficult to reach up to 2,324 of the planned premises.

Regular readers will recall that most of Gigaclear’s state aid supported contracts under the Building Digital UK (BDUK) framework ran into problems with significant delays a couple of years back (e.g. some builds were set back by up to around 2 years), which among other things resulted in the collapse of one of their largest contracts in Devon and Somerset. The operator’s complementary commercial build also suffered.

By comparison, the Fastershire contract, which was similarly disrupted, opted to stick with the provider and last year completed a revision of their contract (here). At the time Fastershire, which also covers Gloucestershire and had initially planned to cover more than 70,000 premises (inclusive of their commercial build), said that the ISP would now reach for an expanded target of 110,000 premises across both counties by September 2022.

At present Gigaclear has already connected nearly 8,931 rural properties in Herefordshire to their full fibre network but, as a result of the aforementioned “challenges“, Fastershire are now warning that up to 2,324 of the planned premises are currently under commercial review in the county.

Statement from Herefordshire Council:

“Whilst we recognise the contribution Gigaclear has made in meeting the ambitions of Herefordshire in having some of the fastest broadband in the country, we are incredibly disappointed that we now have premises under review. Our priority continues to be finding a solution for those communities including engaging with national government.”

Gareth Williams, CEO of Gigaclear, said:

“We sympathise with the impacted communities in Herefordshire and understand that the continued delays are very disappointing. However, we are still working collaboratively with Fastershire to find a solution for those areas. Some of the premises in these areas are the most difficult to connect because there is very little existing infrastructure, the properties are geographically scattered and recent changes to the regulatory environment have damaged the investment case to connect these areas.

We are grateful to the local authority for giving us the opportunity to be part of their broadband programme, and we will continue to explore how we can connect the communities affected.”

The news, which is sure to frustrate those living in the affected areas, is also somewhat embarrassing for Gigaclear, particularly after they appeared to have turned a corner over the past year and were starting to see a strong increase in deployment pace again.

At the same time, it’s also another reminder of just how challenging it can be to build FTTP into rural locations, particularly the most remote communities, where per premises build costs can easily rise above expectations. We’re currently also trying to find out exactly which “recent changes to the regulatory environment have damaged the investment case to connect these areas.”

The following network sections, which cover quite a wide geographic area (see Gigaclear’s project page), are now under commercial review. We suspect that these areas, if not reached by another operator (commercially), may have to wait for a new contract to be signed as part of the Government’s new £5bn Project Gigabit programme.

The Under Review Sections
Whitchurch, Herefordshire
Llangrove, Herefordshire
Peterchurch, Herefordshire
Kings Thorn, Herefordshire
Broad Oak, Herefordshire
Ewyas Harold, Herefordshire
Pen-pwll-sond, Herefordshire
Fording Lane Herefordshire
St Margarets, Herefordshire
Callow, Herefordshire
Hinton, Herefordshire
Church Road Herefordshire
Orcop, Herefordshire
Wormbridge, Herefordshire
Glebe Orchard, including some Herefordshire premises
Aston Ingham including some Herefordshire premises
Dymock, including some Herefordshire premises