High speed broadband helps flood-hit Muchelney firms rebuild their businesses
Across Langport, Somerton and Castle Cary, more than 6,440 households and businesses can access superfast fibre broadband thanks to the CDS rollout scheme; news welcomed by MP David Warburton.
The multi-million pound Connecting Devon and Somerset (CDS) partnership is helping the revitalisation of a Somerset village, which was hit by its worst flooding for 90 years.
Muchelney, which captured the headlines when it was hit by major flooding in 2014 and suffered some further flooding last month, is one of the latest communities to benefit from the CDS roll-out of superfast broadband.
Businesses and households in Muchelney now have access to broadband speeds up to 80Mbps. They are among more than 6,440 premises included in the CDS fibre roll-out across Langport, Somerton and Castle Cary.
The new connection follows recent improvements by Somerset County Council to the road network in Muchelney. An award-winning road scheme resulted in 500 metres of highway raised by up to 1.3 metres to help prevent residents from becoming stranded in heavy rain and flooding.
Councillor David Hall, Somerset County Council’s cabinet member for business inward investment and policy, said: “Stable, reliable superfast broadband connections are crucial to support communities that need to be as flood resilient as possible. The CDS connections played an important part in supporting people to rebuild their homes and businesses and get back on their feet. Together with the innovative road raising work, the superfast broadband speeds will help to secure the future of our villages with an extra layer of infrastructure.”
Across Muchelney, businesses have praised the new infrastructure developments.
One business quick to sign up to the new technology was Carolyn Roche, owner of Thorney Farm holiday cottages based in the heart of Muchelney. Carolyn ordered superfast broadband to help speed up the recovery of her business and improve the company website.
She said: “Naturally, we’ve immediately upgraded our systems and we’re delighted that we’re able to offer free wi-fi speeds of over 30mbps to all our guests in all the cottages – a vast improvement from the capacity of 2mbps we had (not at all enjoyed) previously.
“Superfast broadband has made a tremendous improvement to our livelihood. We can update the business website much faster than before when taking bookings and without keeping the customer waiting on the phone.
“In light of the flooding, we have used the superfast connection to set-up a village communication system which allows us to send information to everyone in times of flooding. Thanks to superfast broadband, we are always connected to the outside world no matter what nature throws at us.”
David Warburton, MP for Somerton and Frome, said: “It’s been a real test in recent years overcoming the challenges of flooding. It’s great to see Muchelney championing how far the region has come and the role CDS has played in providing superfast broadband on top of all the hard work Somerset County Council has done to ensure these villages are much more resilient in the future. Broadband provision plays a key role in helping business operations and jobs. Moving forward we hope to see this new technology bringing even more benefits to the local economy.”
Paul Coles, South West regional manager for BT, which is investing £41 million in the CDS programme, said: “The arrival of high-speed fibre broadband in Muchelney is another great example of the huge benefits offered by this exciting technology. It is truly a ‘game changing’ technology, which helps to make businesses more competitive and efficient, and allows households to take full advantage of the latest on-line learning and entertainment. Our engineers played an important role in helping communities severely affected by bad weather get back on their feet. Now major investment in fibre broadband is helping those communities take another vital step forwards.”
The programme is making excellent progress to provide faster broadband to the ‘final third’ of premises unlikely to benefit from the private sector’s commercial broadband investment, the majority in rural locations. Since its launch in 2013, CDS has made high speed fibre broadband available to more than 261,000 households and businesses, of which more than 221,000 have access to superfast broadband speeds in excess of 24mbps. Not only is the infrastructure being put in place, but CDS has seen the average take up rate by local households and businesses grow rapidly to 21.75 per cent.
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For further information, please contact: Sofia Costa, sofia.costa@jbp.co.uk: or 0117 907 6510
For BT enquiries contact the BT Regional Press Office on 0800 085 0660. All news releases can be accessed at our web site: http://www.bt.com/newscentre
About Connecting Devon and Somerset
Councils across Devon and Somerset are working together to bring faster broadband to the area and deliver improved broadband for rural Devon and Somerset – the “final third” – rural areas that are unlikely to benefit from commercial investment in broadband.
The Connecting Devon and Somerset Programme covers Devon County Council, Somerset County Council, Bath and North East Somerset Council, Plymouth City Council, Torbay Council, and North Somerset Council areas.
In 2011 the programme secured £32 million of funding from the government agency Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) and both Somerset and Devon County Councils put in £10 million each. Further funding from Bath and North East Somerset Council brought the public sector total close to £53 million. With the £41 million additional investment from BT the Programme it took initial investment up to £94 million to improve broadband connectivity.
In 2014 BDUK announced a further £22.75m allocated to the CDS programme to support the extension of superfast broadband coverage to 95 per cent of premises nationally. This was matched locally, which means the programme will benefit from an additional£45 million plus to invest in bringing superfast broadband to the area.
Most of the CDS programme will be fibre to the cabinet (FTTC) technology, which can deliver download speeds of up to 80Mbps and upload speeds of up to 20Mbps.These are the top wholesale speeds available to all service providers; speeds offered by service providers may vary.
The new network is available on an open, wholesale basis to all broadband service providers. Households and businesses wishing to place an order or find out more about fibre broadband should contact their service provider.
In addition to the CDS programme, the private sector has rolled out fibre broadband to many communities across the region, mainly in urban areas. CDS is ultimately looking at providing 100 per cent faster broadband coverage across Devon and Somerset.
For more information, visit www.connectingdevonandsomerset.co.uk
About “Get up to Speed”
The ‘Get up to Speed’ service is delivered by the Cosmic Peninsula Consortium on behalf of Connecting Devon and Somerset. The newly established consortium, formed by Peninsula Enterprise and Cosmic IT, will undertake a series of workshops and events that will follow the infrastructure roll out as it moves across Devon and Somerset, helping businesses and individuals’ access information and develop the skills they need to get the most from the faster broadband speeds.
For more information please visit www.get-up-to-speed.co.uk
About Superfast Britain
Superfast Britain is a Government programme of investment in broadband and communication infrastructure across the UK. Run by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, this investment helps businesses to grow, creates jobs and will make Britain more competitive in the global race. The portfolio is comprised of three elements:
- £780m to extend superfast broadband to 95% of the UK by 2017
- £150m to provide high speed broadband to businesses in 22 cities
- £150m to improve quality and coverage of mobile phone and basic data network services
Administered on behalf of Government by Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK), Superfast Britain is transforming Britain by promoting growth, enabling skills and learning, and improving quality of life.
For further information, visit https://www.gov.uk/broadband-delivery-uk
