Normandy Gigabit - Make or Break!

I have not provided an update for a while - however, while the Phase 1 and 4 parts to the Phase 2 schemes have not progressed, there has been a lot going on in the background.

Because of the sheer volume of applications to the Government Gigabit Scheme for Vouchers through Openreach, Openreach took the decision to put a hold on all Gigabit Broadband Voucher projects. This means that the Phase 1 project which is with the DCMS (The Government) for sign off and the 4 schemes which make up Phase 2 are all ON HOLD. This has been the case since mid-December when I was chasing for updates and both of our local representatives gave me the same message.

The voucher scheme for Surrey ends July 2022. This means that if our scheme is not at the stage where we have collected our vouchers we will not be able to access them for Openreach to pay for the upgrade of our infrastructure for the good of our community. We need DCMS approval before we are in a position to work with Openrerach to collect vouchers. It concerns me that Phase 1 has been with the DCMS since September meaning that they have had our scheme for 5 months. The 4x Phase 2 schemes have not even been submitted to the DCMS yet, and if it takes 5 months for approval of these schemes we will be in trouble.

With the help of Normandy Parish Council and our Network and Asset Management lead at Surrey County Council we have been trying to find a way to move our scheme forwards. Every avenue we have tried, Twitter, approaching the DCMS, Openreach Complaints all have lazily pointed me back to our Openreach reps who to this day can tell me no more. We do have some hope, however, as after complaining to the CEO of Openreach, on Friday 21st Jan I received a response from a senior complaints rep apologizing for the difficulties we are facing with our scheme and a promise to have a conversation with him next week to discuss.

So this is where we are to date. I am hoping that with the help of Openreach complaints I can get some more context about why our scheme has been with the DCMS for approval for so long and we can build a plan to drive our scheme forwards.

I am keen to publicize our plight. I have contacted The Guardian and I am keen to voice our poor experience with Openreach in the media where possible. I believe that our Openreach reps have done their best, however, we are a year down the line now with little movement on our schemes. I feel that Openreach could have been much more helpful in terms of looking at Normandy as a whole and planning out a single low-cost scheme to meet all of our community's needs.

Please get in touch with me if you have access to media channels so that I can publicize the plight of our community.

In short, if this scheme does not happen, I can confidently predict that Normandy will not have its broadband infrastructure upgraded until 2030 at least.