Superfast broadband roll-out not so fast

Audlem will have to wait at least until December to find out how and when the village will get connected to Cheshire's superfast broadband network.

The Connecting Cheshire Partnership overseeing the £28.5 million project says preparatory survey work on the broadband roll-out will take several months.

Digital Engagement Manager Andrew Arditti told AudlemOnline: "A key element of this process is carrying out a survey of the existing infrastructure and particularly to try and pre-empt problems with the positioning of the new roadside cabinets that will be required to bring fibre connectivity to each community, as resolving these issues has held up the deployment considerably elsewhere in the country."

"This survey work will take some months, so we should be in a position to announce which localities will be included in the first stage of the roll-out around December 2013 with further announcements thereafter."

"We are also very conscious that we do not make deployment announcements that we can't deliver on; which I'm sure you will agree is something we want to avoid at all costs."

The £28.5 million project got off to a fanfare 'superfast' start at the official launch at the Oulton Park Racetrack last June.

And local campaigners pitched in with a huge village push to get people to register their interest in a high speed Internet connection for the village.

Almost everyone in Audlem with a telephone connection was sent an email outlining the importance of signing up for the scheme. By the deadline date they passed their targets with more than 50% of Audlem residents and businesses on board.

The Connecting Cheshire Partnership awarded the £28.5 million contract to deliver fibre broadband to rural areas of Cheshire to BT at the end of April this year.

The three-year project is forecast to result in 96% of Cheshire able to access a superfast fibre broadband service by the end of 2015.

BT's Openreach engineers have begun the process of planning the 'how, where and when' with engineers currently surveying locations across Cheshire and analysing the best way to roll out the network.

The technical survey will play a major part in determining the feasibility of the connection programme. Where Audlem will figure in the roll-out remains to be seen but it appears that the village is unlikely to hear anything before 2014.

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