So much has happened since our last progress report it’s hard to know where to start! B4RN teams are building as fast as lightning with two mole ploughing dig teams on the go, hard-dig build teams continue throughout Barrasford and the technical fibre splicing / blowing teams are following them throughout.
The most exciting news first is that B4RN have heard back from the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT, for short) and BDUK and they’ve agreed to supply our Government vouchers for the Kirkwhelpington and Woodburn project similar to Barrasford! So it’s been agreed everyone who was in the initial project scope will get connected. B4RN have 18 months to claim these vouchers so I’m sure will continue to work at lightning speeds to make sure these get delivered.
Chollerton School now has a free connection and has been fully connected! Here’s their before and after speed-test results below!
On the Barrasford side of things. B4RN has already gone from Barrasford Village Hall and reached the end of the Birtley Route 1 (right up to Birtley Shields) and at the other side to Chollerton Church. Over 90 Km of fibre ducting has been laid already. There’s a fair amount of fibre blowing and very intricate splicing needed along the way, but people are already connected in homes and farms who’ve never been close to a BT green box, always had poor internet (if at all) and are now getting some of the worlds fastest rural broadband available at 1000Mbps!
More residents are getting connected as the fibre blowers/splicers work their way outwards from the centre and are able to connect them on these routes.
In other big news, B4RN had inspections from Tim Blades from the Government department – Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT, for short) who was taking a keen interest in how B4RN has been building our fibre project and how it differs from other providers. Not just in speed, everyone getting their own-personal fibre to the home, and power outage resilience of the B4RN network. This has proven itself in the recent storms, since the B4RN big green box at Barrasford Village Hall has its own power supply for cuts which can also be run with a generator when needed! To keep your router at home running during a power cut especially if you have your normal phone connected to this, consider looking to buy a – UPS (Uninterruptable power supply) to plug your Zytel router into – Click here to see B4RN website for more details. Also note if you have a plug-in phone (i.e. a dect handset for example) you’ll need to consider its needs as well.
We’ve had drop-in meetings at the end of November to discuss any concerns at Barrasford, Birtley and Colwell, village halls and presented update meetings of where things are up to in this last week at Barrasford and Gunnerton talking to local residents at each and keeping them up to date.
B4RN has been clear at these latest meetings that there will be some investment needed to come from residents before the build would be complete. This is an investment, not a grant and B4RN are offering a 5% PA return on what you put in and shares can be returned after 3 years.
We’d already raised a big chunk of this over £60,000 and we’re so thankful for all those who’ve already put in some investment but they’ll need to be more if everyone is going to get connected, but B4RN have never failed to meet an investment target so we hope more people will be willing to to help.
Click here or on our investment page link above for more details.
By the community reaching this milestone, it unlocks over £900,000 of funding for the project from government vouchers and grants locally. It will be a huge boost to the area with all the community benefits B4RN brings.
B4NTR Investment so far for Barrasford Project – inc Birtley, Gunnerton, Colwell, Chollerton and The Swinburn’s) – Last Updated – 24/1/24
Finally this week our project has been featured in the Hexham Courant again as a good news story for community fibre and the Ray Wind Fund has contributed a significant amount of money to our project locally (not part of the included amount above). Thanks to them for helping to get all this started faster along with B4RN.
B4RN is continuing to build at pace right now. Here’s a load of action shots all from our area very recently of what’s been happening throughout!
