New homes in Gobowen to benefit from roll-out of fibre broadband

Connecting Shropshire and Fletcher Homes (Shropshire) Ltd have agreed to co-fund the roll-out of superfast fibre broadband to the new Wat’s Meadow estate in the village of Gobowen, near Oswestry.

Around 50,000 households and businesses across the county already have access to faster fibre broadband as a result of Connecting Shropshire, the partnership between Shropshire Council, BT and the Government’s Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) programme.

Now an additional 124 households at Wat’s Meadow, the housing estate built by the Shrewsbury-based housebuilder, are also set to benefit following a co-funding deal between the developer and Connecting Shropshire.

Whilst much of Gobowen already has access to fibre broadband, most people living in Wat’s Meadow are currently only able to access broadband speeds of around two megabits per second (2Mbps) or less. If everything goes to plan, the first homes will be able to upgrade to superfast broadband before the end of next year.

Steve Charmley, Shropshire Council Cabinet member responsible for broadband, said: “I’m all in favour of working collaboratively with other stakeholders to bring fibre broadband to those parts of Shropshire not in our roll-out plan. I’d like to pay tribute to Fletcher Homes for their proactive approach to resolving this issue. I’m pushing for the process to be expedited so that access to faster broadband can be provided to Wat’s Meadow as soon as possible.”

Owen Paterson, MP for North Shropshire, said: “I have been pressing for a solution to this issue of poor broadband for residents of Wat’s Meadow since first being contacted by one of my constituents in October last year. I am pleased to see that our efforts have been rewarded and I will continue to lobby for better superfast broadband and mobile phone coverage in North Shropshire.”

Ian Binks, BT’s regional manager for Shropshire and the West Midlands, said: “Connecting Shropshire is a multi-million pound engineering programme which is progressing extremely well. When combined with BT’s commercial roll-out, more than 177,000 premises across Shropshire and Telford & Wrekin are now able to access faster fibre broadband, and we’re committed to finding solutions for those communities not yet covered by any partnership or commercial roll-out by the private sector*. This collaborative approach with Fletcher Homes is a great example of what can be achieved. As a result, households at Wat’s Meadow will be able to access broadband download speeds that are around 25 times faster than they are able to get at the moment.”

Jonathan Westwood, the managing director of Fletcher Homes, said: “We’re pleased to be able to work with Connecting Shropshire to bring better broadband to Wat’s Meadow. Customer satisfaction is the key driver in all that we do, so I’m glad that we’ve been able to find a solution to this issue, which home owners have spoken to us about.

“Knowing how important access to high-speed broadband is in the 21st century, I’m pleased to say that our new developments in Ellesmere and Cross Houses will have access to fibre broadband.”

People wanting to find out if fibre broadband is available in their area should enter their phone number or postcode in the checker on the Connecting Shropshire website.