Essex Council Settles Legal Dispute with Rural Broadband ISP Gigaclear

The Essex County Council (ECC) in England has this afternoon confirmed that they’ve settled their legal dispute with Abingdon-based UK broadband ISP Gigaclear, which was originally raised last summer (here) over an alleged failure by the network operator to deliver on their contracted Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) build.

Just to recap. The situation in Essex concerned Gigaclear’s earlier contracts under the previous Government’s Superfast Broadband (SFBB) programme, which was managed at a local level by the council with support from the Building Digital UK (BDUK) agency. As we recall, Gigaclear held several of these contracts, such as Phase 2b (part of Epping Forest), Phase 3.1 (Uttlesford), Phase 3.2 (Braintree, Colchester) and Phase 4a.1 (Epping Forest).

However, as we’ve reported in the past, Gigaclear did face some sizeable delivery delays to a number of their rural broadband roll-out contracts a few years ago, which wasn’t just a problem in Essex but also affected similar contracts in other counties too (e.g. Devon and Somerset – here, where the contracts were eventually scrapped). But some local authorities, like Essex, were more tolerant and accepted some delay.

Nevertheless, the situation appeared to boil up again last summer after reports indicated that the ECC had launched court proceedings against the ISP for breach of contract, while claiming that three of their four build contracts remain unfulfilled – these were expected to bring Gigaclear’s FTTP network to more than 10,000 rural premises. But apparently a small portion of this had not been reached (c.400 premises in the Braintree, Colchester, Epping Forest and Uttlesford districts).

The figure of 400 premises might not sound like much, but in remote rural areas it can be extremely costly and time-consuming to extend FTTP to such premises (sometimes reaching £2-£4k+ per premises). In addition, unexpected build obstacles can sometimes make it so expensive as to be economically unviable to deliver.

At the time, the ECC’s Cabinet Member for Planning, Lee Scott, said the council had “made every effort to resolve these issues with Gigaclear, supporting them throughout the process“, before adding that it was “deeply disappointing to be let down in this manner“. But the good news today is that the two sides appear to have reached a settlement.

Gigaclear’s Statement

Essex County Council and broadband operator, Gigaclear have reached a settlement agreement.

This is in relation to the legal proceedings concerning broadband delivery contracts in Essex.

Gigaclear has delivered ultrafast broadband to over 90,000 properties in Essex. They are committed to expanding the network across the county over the next 18 months.

The Council welcomes Gigaclear’s continued investment and broadband rollout in the region. This news is especially positive for residents who experience a lack of broadband connectivity in the affected areas.

The announcement, while positive, appears to lack much detail on what the settlement itself actually specifies and, crucially, whether this means that the premises – those previously left unserved by the new network – will now be reached. Gigaclear have informed us that they are unable to elaborate further on the statement.