BT U-turn over super fast broadband for Startforth

PEOPLE in Startforth are furious after BT reneged on a promise to deliver superfast broadband to the village.

Villagers were told in March that work to upgrade their cabinet would begin in September, but that has now been cancelled.

BT says it had to bin the project because it is too expensive to install.

However, people say the move is shortsighted because of new housing developments which would give the village a population that is about a third the size of Barnard Castle.

One resident, who runs an IT business from his home in the village, said: “The 1,400 population of Startforth are on a standard broadband maximum of 8Mbps. Meanwhile, miles away from anywhere, Eggleston’s population of 448 enjoy 50Mbps fibre.”

The resident was informed of BT’s decision last week.

He said: “The let-down email from BT started ‘Dear John’ – that is not my name, so says it all really.”

A BT spokesperson said fibre broadband was installed in Eggleston through Digital Durham, and was not part of the company’s commercial rollout.

The issue was raised by the village’s county council representative, Cllr Richard Bell, who said the problem arose because of the location of the current cabinet which cannot simply be replaced with a new fibre cabinet. Relocating the cabinet would be too expensive, he said.

Cllr Bell added: “This is very disappointing. This is not acceptable for a huge commercial outfit like BT and is also bad business sense for them as the uptake of superfast broadband in Startforth is likely to be high and they will get their investment back. I will be making this point to them directly.”

The BT spokesperson said: “We are very sorry that this cabinet has been removed from BT’s commercial roll-out of fibre broadband. All fibre broadband upgrades are subject to survey and despite numerous attempts to find a suitable location that is commercially viable it has not been possible due to the extensive relocation of the existing infrastructure that is required.

“Discussions are now taking place with partners to consider whether there are other ways of providing improved broadband speeds for residents in this area.”