UPDATE 9 - Superfast Fibre Broadband Project for Throwley

The following was presented at the Throwley Annual Parish Meeting on 29th November, 2022

Optical fibre, with speeds up to 1000Mbps, is the solution to our current and future broadband needs. Access to the Internet is now considered as important as water and electricity are. It has been shown how vital it is during the pandemic times. However, about half of the properties in our Parish have broadband speeds through telephone cable well below 10Mbps, which is inadequate for current needs. Therefore, many of these households use wireless (e.g. Vfast) or mobile broadband (e.g. EE, Vodafone), which are unreliable and not really very fast.

Timeline so far

Round 0

• Autumn 2014 – the quest for a better broadband for Throwley has started. Representations to Parliamentary Committee on Rural Broadband. Negotiations with KCC and Openreach.
• 2017 – success! Optical fibre line was laid between the Eastling telephone exchange and Throwley Forstal. Fibre-enabled broadband services with speeds up to 80Mbs became available to about 50 households.

Round 1

• 10/11/2020 – Throwley Community Superfast Fibre Broadband Project launched to provide fast broadband to the remaining parts of the Parish.
• 17/11/2020 – Project submitted to Openreach. 92 properties have registered, including 30 businesses. 54 properties with the download speeds below 3Mbps.
• 05/01/2021 – Openreach included all 161 (later increased to 164) premises connected to the Eastling exchange distribution points. Estimated project costs to community £324,761.
• 19/02/2021 – Last day of the submission of the projects for the approval by the Government Department of Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport (DCMS). Openreach claimed they submitted on time, but the project has not been considered within the original scheme.

Round 2

• April 2021 – New £5bn ‘Project Gigabit’ launched by Government. Throwley qualifies but Kent is not on the priority list. Throwley project resubmitted.
• Summer 2021 – Openreach and DCMS blaming each other for the delay with project approval.
• February 2022 – with the four months delay, KCC launched the voucher scheme.
  However, Openreach did not include Throwley in the scheme.
  Instead Openreach applied to DCMS for Throwley to be included in the so-called “priority build area”.

Round 3

• According to the most recent update of the Project Gigabit published on 30/08/2022 Project Gigabit Delivery Plan - summer update 2022 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk), the Kent area is currently subject to Procurement negotiations between Openreach and DCMS, with estimated contract award in July-September 2023.
• Our MP, Helen Whately, who intervened in this matter on our behalf many times before, has been contacted by us again and was asked to help with the negotiations between DCMS and Openreach, to secure that all the Throwley properties are on the list of the awarded contract.
• The contact person in Openreach has changed. The new person has no knowledge about the Throwley project or about the Procurement => escalated!
• Openreach has started commercial installation of the fibre optic cables in some parts of Throwley Parish, including along Bagshill Road to the SEW water station and to some properties in Belmont area.