What the Governments announcements on Super Fast Fibre Broadband mean to us.
When the Government made its latest announcement about Broadband, the Parish Council again contacted Connecting Cambridgeshire about what it might mean for the village.
They confirmed that:
Elsworth is in scope for the Project Gigabit Lot5 procurement that Connecting Cambridgeshire and BDUK are currently consulting on but they can’t confirm if Elsworth will be included in the resulting procurement and rollout until this process is completed. This is likely to be in the summer.
Meantime Elsworth are also still in County Broadband plans for 2022/23 so they will probably start engaging with the village later this year. They are currently building FTTP in Newton, Fowlmere and Thriplow and should complete the build in the next 3-6 months.
It looks like a few premises (along Smith St) were picked up last year under our current Openreach rollout and have access to FTTP but it is only a handful.
Next Steps
The Parish Council will be contacting County Broadband but this is purely to understand their intentions. We wish to be clear that we are not supporting or sponsoring their involvement in the provision of Fibre Broadband to Premises.
If one or more villagers would like to be involved in exploring options for the village and take on this project, please contact Liz Sim, Parish Clerk.