Complaints Prompt Inspections of CityFibre’s Swindon Full Fibre Build

The Swindon Borough Council has confirmed that “all works” by CityFibre, which is currently investing £40m to deploy a new 1Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP network across the Wiltshire town, will be “inspected for defects shortly“. The move was prompted by “numerous” complaints.

The rollout in Swindon, which is currently due to be “substantially completed” by 2024, began during late 2020 and is being delivered by civil engineering firm Volker Smart Technologies. CityFibre’s rollout is being supported by various ISPs, such as Vodafone (Gigafast Broadband), TalkTalk (Future Fibre), Zen Internet and Giganet etc.

However, the build in Swindon has occasionally come in for a spot of criticism, such as in March 2022 after a number of angry locals complained about having their houses and driveways blocked by the digging of new trenches. Not to mention various concerns about health & safety practices and a lack of forewarning for the work (here).

Councillor Jim Grant (Labour) has now informed the Swindon Advertiser that they’ve also had “numerous complaints” about the quality of work and related repairs. According to Grant, the council has said that “all works by CityFibre will be inspected for defects shortly … we know that some works being carried out have become defective, but on a scheme of this scale it is expected.”

A Council Spokesperson said:

“This infrastructure rollout covers the whole borough and will mean Swindon gets lightning fast broadband connections, making sure homes in the town stay connected to the ever-growing online world.

Due to the scale of this rollout, it was likely there would be disruption and we have been inspecting CityFibre’s reinstatement work as we go along to make sure it is up to standard.”

The council added that they have “received far fewer complaints about this kind of work when compared to other local authorities who are undertaking similar projects,” although no evidence was provided to help substantiate that remark. Indeed, most local authorities tend not to reveal such detail to the public, unless a supplier has done something exceptionally wrong.

The authority added that CityFibre even use the local build as a “positive example to other contractors doing similar work elsewhere“, but “where there have been issues, we have issued penalty charges to CityFibre if the work hasn’t been completed properly.”

Neil Madle, CityFibre’s Local Area Manager, said:

“Our rollout is well underway, with work completed in several parts of the town. However, a new infrastructure project of this scale is a major undertaking, which is why we always strive to deliver as effectively and efficiently as possible.

We regret that concerns have been raised in this case and we can assure residents we are working closely with the council’s Streetworks team and our build partner to rectify the issue as swiftly as possible. We would like to thank residents for their continued patience.”

As we’ve said before, deploying new infrastructure will inevitably create periods of disruption for residents in the same area, which is often true no matter who is doing the noisy civil engineering side of things. Over the years we’ve seen similar gripes being levelled against most of the main operators, and some smaller players too.

Some related complaints are also very difficult to avoid (e.g. blocked driveways and noise), although in other cases the contractors may occasionally be failing to follow good practice. However, in the long run, the ability to access affordable gigabit broadband speeds should make all of this disruption worthwhile and may even boost the value of local housing, as well as the economy.

Nevertheless, operators do still have a clear responsibility to conduct the work properly and, for the most part, they do take action when problems are identified.