Months of work by volunteers to hook up a hard-to-reach corner of Eden with full-fibre broadband have been wasted.
At the 11th hour the Government pulled the plug on a funding package, leaving volunteers furious after they had spent nine months getting people onside.
Residents in Warcop, Sandford, Coupland Beck, Bleatarn and Ormside had joined forces and hoped to get superfast reliable broadband in before Christmas. For years, home-owners and businesses have been beset by slow upload and download speeds and unreliable connections to the internet.
The fix was on the horizon in a community link-up with internet provider B4RN, Broadband for the Rural North, a Lancashire-based community benefit society.
The start of digging to lay the fibre cables was just weeks away. More than 70 landowners had agreed and residents were set to play their part. This would have allowed B4RN to provide 1GB connections for just £33 per month, with a commitment to leave no home behind.
But out of the blue this week, Building Digital UK, a wing of a Government department, suddenly declared that the parish was no longer a priority area.
That means vouchers, or thousands of pounds of financial help towards the huge costs, have gone up in smoke — putting the project on indefinite hold.
Instead, a new commercial provider is expected to swoop in and pick up the project, but the worry among residents is that this would put them to the back of the queue.
A government spokesperson said: “Through the government’s £5 billion Project Gigabit programme, we are investing more than £100 million in Cumbria to connect people to lightning-fast broadband. The first premises are already connected and benefitting from access to gigabit-capable, reliable internet access.
“Local people who are covered by the Project Gigabit contract will be able to choose from multiple service providers once installation is complete, with rollout anticipated at broadly the same pace as other schemes.”
There are concerns in the community that any commercial company could miss some homes out due to the cost, connection speeds will be significantly slower than promised at 300MBps and costs for the service could double.
B4RN bosses called the decision a “disappointment and a surprise”.
Carol and David White, of Sandford, are among the large group of local volunteers who have criticised what they called a “sudden ripping up of the rule book”.
They have complained directly to Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Levelling Up, and the Conservative MP for the area, Dr Neil Hudson.
Volunteers said they were devastated to learn the news with absolutely no notice.
“It has taken us around nine months to garner support and secure agreements from over 70 landowners, including numerous one-to-one visits, and we were in the final days of getting these completed,” said Carol.
“This is an utterly disorderly way of ripping up a perfectly good system. We are a close-knit community and have spent a generous amount of our time volunteering – something the Government is very keen to encourage. This has been a complete waste of our time and effort.”
Speeds in Sandford range between 30-50Mbps and are slightly higher in Warcop. However, in Bleatarn, speeds are only between 6-8Mbps and at peak times, demand triples and speeds are reduced.
“We will now be disadvantaged as a community for even longer,” said Carol. “This is another blow to a rurally-deprived area.”
B4RN said in a statement that BDUK had informed it that the plan to connect Warcop would not be approved, and voucher funding would not be available.
“We believe that BDUK have concluded that service to the community should instead be provided by a commercial supplier using the regional procurement process,” said a spokesman.
“This is disappointing news. We sympathise with the local volunteers in Warcop and would like to thank them for their hard work. B4RN continues to deliver its full-fibre gigabit broadband network to the hardest to reach rural communities.”
BDUK were contacted for comment. Dr Hudson said: “I absolutely share in people’s frustrations that the decision was made so late in the day and with so little communication. We need to utilise B4RN’s expertise in these hard-to-reach areas, particularly when there are shovel-ready projects ready to go. I believe they can and should work side by side with Fibrus to deliver change across our great and varied county.
“I am tremendously proud of Cumbria’s £100 million Project Gigabit scheme that will unlock economic and social potential in rural areas, so it is only right for me to fight to make sure it works for everyone.
“And that is just what I intend to do by taking forward residents’ concerns to BDUK to find an equitable solution for all stakeholders – B4RN, Fibrus, and our rural communities that have so much to gain by getting connected.”
