Focus on Colton Parish
Jul 5, 2013So far an exchange roll out plan has been published with Ulverston listed amongst those exchanges for upgrading first – by the end of this year.
Of importance to our Parish, Newby Bridge is listed as having an initial evaluation completed & now awaiting engineers’ site visits. Greenodd has not yet had an initial evaluation.
The North Yorkshire experience tells us that the initial estimates of who can get superfast broadband tend to be pessimistic. As the detailed design work is done, the areas which can not be covered by superfast broadband tend to shrink and the areas where there is likely to be continued poor coverage are redefined.
At the moment we are waiting to see which postcodes in the Parish are scheduled to get what service. If we assume that most if not all of the Parish is not scheduled for superfast broadband what can we do about it?
This is where community involvement will be crucial. We will need a list of properties and businesses, together with their postcodes and a small amount of additional information, to sign up to support bringing superfast broadband to their premises.
Business support, including home based business, is particularly important and there is the potential of grant funding here (with some very tight timescales for spending it). Supporting such a survey does not commit anyone to purchasing a particular product but is a demonstration of potential demand.
A team of designers will be available to work with communities such as ours to reach the optimum solution – Let’s get in early!
I am proposing to hold three open meetings to kickstart this process, hopefully to enlist volunteers and demonstrate the extent of demand in Colton parish. Dates and venues on my next post…………