Devon and Somerset Expand FTTP Rollout with Wessex Internet UPDATE

The Connecting Devon and Somerset (CDS) programme has announced that their existing full fibre broadband rollout contract with rural UK ISP Wessex Internet is to be extended, which will see a further 1,110 homes and businesses in South Somerset gaining access to their gigabit speed Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network.

Just to recap. The original Phase 2 CDS contract, which was awarded at the end of 2020 (here) and supported by £4.7m of public investment (partly from Building Digital UK), meant the operator would spend three years on a build to expand their full fibre network to cover 3,618 premises (homes and businesses) in remote rural parts of South Somerset.

The first civil engineering work on this project finally got underway during May 2021 in the village of Woolston, North Cadbury. The first customers then began to connect in December of that same year. The work has since expanded into various other communities, such as North and South Barrow, Sparkford and many more.

The good news today is that CDS and Wessex Internet have agreed to a contract extension, which will see a further 1,110 premises benefitting from their deployment (i.e. raising the total to over 4,700 properties). The expansion includes the surrounding areas of Isle Abbotts, Bower Hinton, Yeabridge, South Petherton and Tintinhull.

Councillor Mike Rigby, CDS Board Member, said:

“This announcement of the contract extension is extremely welcome news. The team at Wessex Internet has been making good progress on its rollout on behalf of CDS and this extension to the contract will enable a further 1,100 premises in rural areas of South Somerset to gain access to full fibre broadband connections.”

Hector Gibson Fleming, CEO of Wessex Internet, said:

“We are pleased to be able to bring ultrafast broadband to even more people in rural areas as we extend our reach to the western part of South Somerset where we know that there is a real demand for a fast, efficient broadband connection.”

Sadly, the announcement makes no mention of how much additional funding is involved, although they appear to be extracting some extra investment from their Growth Deal funding. Otherwise, initial planning for these additional properties is currently underway, and a full community engagement programme will shortly be rolled out to ensure that residents are fully informed of the plans.

We’ve extracted a copy of the operator’s latest rollout plan for this contract and pasted it below, but this probably won’t show all the additions until they’ve finished the planning phase. However, we do note that there have been a few delays below, such as with the construction start date for The Charltons – shifting from ‘Summer 2022’ to ‘Winter 2022’, among others (see original plan from 2021).

UPDATE 29th June 2022

We’ve been informed that an additional £1.7 million of public funding is being invested into the contract extension, which by itself would reflect a subsidy of about £1,531 per premises.