B4RN Project Hits Snag

The B4RN project appears to have hit a snag with Lancashire County Council hampering their UK rollout in both Caton and Halton.

21:43 07 July 2018

The Broadband for the Rural North (B4RN) project, which deploys a community built and funded FTTH network to rural UK homes, is having trouble getting the approval of Lancashire County Council (LCC) to rollout its services in both Caton and Halton.

 

The B4RN project is deployed with the help of local volunteers and landowners who agree to waive their right to payment to enable the fibre to be dug through their land.

 

LCC has a long history of shunning B4RN’s work in favour of their state aid supported Superfast Lancashire (SFL) project with BT (Openreach). Initially, LLC wanted £850 for the wayleave but with Cat Smith, Labour MP for Lancaster and Fleetwood, intervention, the amount was reduced to just £200. Unfortunately, since B4RN is a community benefit project, even a small figure of £200 is still an obstacle.        

 

B4RN Caton has released an update on the project, which read: “As previously published, a formal request for wayleave was submitted to Lancashire County Council; unfortunately LCC have since requested payment for the processing of this request, despite all the savings and benefits B4RN could bring to the school. The project is therefore currently on hold whilst B4RN try to resolve the issue with LCC.

 

If matters cannot be resolved with LCC then unfortunately we will have to revisit the design and look for alternative sites for the cabinet.

 

Because of these issues and the holiday season, there will be no further monthly meetings until the autumn.”