Councillor makes superfast broadband plea on behalf of village resident - himself

A councillor has made a plea for inclusion on behalf of a homeowner in a Whitby village who has the only house to be left out of a forthcoming rollout of superfast broadband '“ himself.
A councillor has made a plea for inclusion on behalf of himself for superfast broadbandA councillor has made a plea for inclusion on behalf of himself for superfast broadband
A councillor has made a plea for inclusion on behalf of himself for superfast broadband

Cllr David Chance (Con) made the lighthearted plea a today’s Scarborough and Whitby Constituency meeting of North Yorkshire County Council as the councillors were given an update on the rollout of superfast broadband on the coast.

Cllr Chance, who lives in Newholm outside of Whitby, raised the issue with Ian Marr of Superfast North Yorkshire, which is overseeing an approximately £60 million rollout of broadband in the county.

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Cllr Chance said: “Within my hamlet you have identified that the whole hamlet is going to get superfast with the exception of one house and that is because the person in that house is paying for superfast now but isn’t getting it properly.

“They are on copper wires that run from the cabinet in Whitby which has a speed of about 45Mbs and degrades all the way to Newholm giving speed varying between from about 2Mbs to 14Mbs and is fairly consistent at the moment at about 9Mbs.

“Could I make a plea that this one property is included within the fibre [rollout] as all the other properties are in the village to allow it to come up to standard.

“I now must make a declaration of interest that it is my house.”

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The village is one of a number of areas covered in the Phase 3 contract for the Superfast project, which was awarded to Openreach in February and was valued at £20.5m.

It will connect more than 14,000 premises to state-of-the-art fibre technology to give faster download speeds and is due to be delivered by June 2021.

So far more than 160,000 homes and businesses have been connected as part of the partnership between North Yorkshire County Council and BT, which owns Openreach.