Wessex Internet Tweak Dorset and Somerset UK Project Gigabit Broadband Contract

The Government’s Building Digital UK (BDUK) agency has posted another contract modification notice for Wessex Internet’s Project Gigabit contract in Dorset and South Somerset (Lot 14.02), which slightly reduced the planned roll-out of full fibre broadband (FTTP) by 1,047 premises and shrinks its value by £702,296 (public subsidy).

The original Lot 14.02 contract for Dorset and South Somerset was first awarded to Wessex Internet in April 2024 (here), which at the time valued the roll-out at £33.5m (public subsidy) and aimed to cover around 21,400 premises. So far the ISP has already built to 5,030 of the contracted premises (July 2026 BDUK data).

However, the contract has been modified a few times since it was first awarded, which is a normal part of the process. Crucially, after the latest modification today, the total contract value is now listed as £37,516,276 and it aims to reach 18,510 premises (down from 19,557 after the prior update).

The latest change relates to routine open market reviews (OMR), which found that 1,047 of the contracted premises were now “ineligible” for public subsidy (likely because they now had access to gigabit broadband via a commercial network). As above, such contracts are not static and their scope, as well as committed levels of public funding, can change over time for a number of different reasons. For example, commercial operators may expand or reduce their roll-out plans in the same region(s), which can reduce or grow the scope for public investment within those same areas.

The contracted operator could also find the deployment to be more expensive, or possibly even cheaper, than previously envisaged. Such adjustments may occur due to changes in build costs and interest rates / inflation, as well as any unexpected obstacles to street works or greater efficiencies of build than planned or expected. Suffice to say, there can be various reasons why the contracted scope of related builds and the level of allocated public funding may change over time.

The catch is that there may be further changes in the future, which could go in a different direction. So, it’s not always easy to tell what the final picture will be until you actually reach the end of each contracted build.