GoFibre Confirm No Plan for Big Job Cuts After Some Staff Go

Rural UK broadband ISP GoFibre (BorderLink), which is in the process of deploying a new 10Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network across parts of Scotland and the North of England, has confirmed that it has “no plans for large-scale redundancies” after some workers were recently let go.

The alternative network provider, which last year secured a huge investment of £164m from Gresham House (BSIF) (here) and has also won one of the government’s first Project Gigabit contracts (here), currently aims to cover 500,000 premises across the North of England and Scottish Borders areas by around the end of 2025.

So far the operator has already covered 35,000 premises (RFS) – predominantly across Aberdeenshire, East Lothian, the Scottish Borders and Fife – and in May 2023 they unveiled the next 32 locations to benefit from their deployment by early 2024 (this should push their coverage to almost 120,000 premises).

Despite this, ISPreview recently became aware that a number of staff had been made redundant, although so far as we can tell the provider is currently continuing to grow their team in other areas as the FTTP rollout expands (i.e. hiring many more than have been let go). GoFibre have now confirmed that they aren’t planning any large-scale redundancies.

A GoFibre spokesperson told ISPreview:

“As a result of the business changing as it continues to grow, three employees have been made redundant in the last two months. We don’t take these decisions lightly. There are no plans for large-scale redundancies and we are actively recruiting for other roles in the local areas we serve.”

The alternative network market is currently experiencing a lot of strain and instability, which can result in job losses as build plans evolve or slow, although in this case the change appears to be part of a more typical adjustment. At the same time, GoFibre, via parent BorderLink, is having to change its focus after originally starting life as a provider of Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) services.

According to their website, GoFibre is currently in the process of creating 250 new, local jobs, and they’re already home to 140.