The Superfast Essex (SFE) project has begun informing rural residents in poorly served areas that completion of Gigaclear’s Phase 3 and Phase 4a contracts to rollout a new 1Gbps Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP network have been delayed yet again, with completion being pushed from July 2020 to December 2021. The situation began toward the end of autumn last year when the provider revealed that their various Building Digital UK contracts with several counties across England had fallen “significantly behind schedule” (in some areas by as much as 2 years) due to “fundamental issues,” such as a lack of operational capacity, poor decision making, slow deployment by contractors, a lack of detailed planning and a failure to redesign their build methodology etc. At the time Gigaclear had already completed their Phase 2B contract (4,000 premises in Epping Forest) in the county, but they also had on-going work under Phase 3 (8,300 premises in Uttlesford and Central North by Dec 2019) and had recently won the contract for Phase 4a (2,100 premises in Epping Forest). Sadly the local authority soon acknowledged that the provider’s problems had hit their contracts in Essex too, which meant a significant delay. “Work under Phase 3 in Uttlesford District and parts of Braintree District and Colchester Borough and Phase 4a which is due to extend the existing coverage in Epping Forest District is now due to complete by July 2020, rather than December 2019,” said SFE (here). The really bad news, as if it wasn’t already bad enough, is that the SFE team have now begun writing to locals affected by the prior delay in order to warn them that it’s going to take even longer to complete. At the time of writing the SFE project has not yet issued an official press release but they have updated the dates on their website and you can see an extract from one of their private messages to locals below (credits to Dan). Superfast Essex Statement The Superfast Essex broadband programme is writing with news about its Phase 3 full fibre broadband rollout with network operator Gigaclear in Uttlesford Distruct, which is bringing ultrafast fibre broadband to more than 4,600 homes and businesses – including parts of your community. We’re writing to inform you that Gigaclear has advised the timescales for ultrafast broadband becoming available in your community have changed due to several unexpected engineering challenges which means work will be completed later than previously anticipated. All work under Phase 3 of the Superfast Essex programme by Gigaclear is now due to complete by December 2021. Each community also has a revised estimated date for work to be completed within the overall network build timeframe in the district. We understand Gigaclear’s commercial rollout plans around Phase 3 will also be impacted. The above announcement only mentions Phase 3, although from their website it’s clear that Phase 4a is also now due to complete by December 2021. A full table of the revised delivery dates for each area has been posted to the SFE website (here). We have also contacted Gigaclear for a comment via their most recent PR agency and are awaiting a response. UPDATE 12:14pm We’ve now got Gigaclear’s comment. Nathan Rundle, Delivery Director at Gigaclear, said: “We remain fully committed to the delivery of our full fibre broadband network in Essex and understand that this further delay will cause a lot frustration for residents and businesses. This is a huge engineering project with many dependencies, some which are out of our control but, we are fully focussed on resolving the issues. Gigaclear has recently welcomed a new leadership team who will be appointing additional contractors to the region and additional resources to the local Essex team to ensure delivery processes are improved. We want to complete the network build as quickly and efficiently as possible for the residents and our stakeholders and remain committed to do so.”
Completion of Gigaclear’s phase 3 and phase 4a contracts rolling out FTTP broadband to residents covered by the Superfast Essex project has been delayed from July 2020 until December 2021. The delay is due to an ongoing legal challenge against the government over its decision in 2016 not to grant approval for the project.