Broadband Pathway Becomes Clearer

Tony Woodhouse  posted on Facebook

OK  further to this we met councilor Briggs last week. We being Sandra Taylor as a rep of the Parish council and I and had a reasonable time.

We learned that BT was proposing to site a cabinet in the grounds of the exchange for those who do not yet have broadband. They have ‘said’ that they estimate that 102 properties will get in excess of 50 mb downloads and the rest (about 10-15) will get in excess of 24 mb.
These latter will be the ones furthest from the exchange. I am not so sure that this is achievable but as councillor Briggs said ‘Lets get something in for a start’ and we agreed on that principal to go ahead.

This means that we need to constitute a small charity to apply for funding and be within the law. The council can’t help in this matter due to having spent all their allocation of broadband funds so we need a community funded operation.
We need to raise approx £44.500 and the council have agreed to help us with applying for grants etc. from the wind farms via SSE.
So initially I have taken the bull by the horns and asked a couple of people to form the small charity and then do the necessary to apply for funding.

These are Sandra (as above) Geoff Moore (who has experience as a school governor chairman) and Sam (my next door neighbour and myself as technical representative.

So the question is do we need more members or is that sufficient to form the membership? I am happy if someone else wants to take it on as I have no doubt are any of the others or if you are desperate to help.

It will be really simple. We form the charity, we vote to apply for funds from whoever, someone fills in the forms, we get the money and put it into the charity’s bank account and pay it to BT as required.

We also make a contract with BT which will include time limits and penalty clauses etc. to protect the charity from any issues with BT. Once the work is complete we disband the charity forthwith.

So anyone who wishes to be part of the committee could contact me in the first instance then that would be good.

A word of warning though; if it becomes too unwieldy it will only cause problems. Sandra has been asked to ask if any other member of the parish council has any desire to be on the committee.
We need to make a move by the middle of October really to form the small charity so I could do with any nominations at the latest by 1st October.

As above we can constitute with others as required.

Please contact me by email and if you want to mention this to anyone who does not have email or does not come on facebook please do so and you can email on their behalf making it clear who you are doing so for.

Hope this is clear but any questions please ask.

My email is
tony@advanced-comms.co.uk