Community (FTTP overbuild) fibre partnerships

Hi everyone,

I'm hoping people here may have some experiences of FTTP community partnerships to share, I'm in a slightly strange situation of living in a rural village (about 130 properties) with an FTTC All in one cabinet where the local parish council has had a bit of a windfall (about £50K) which they're looking to invest in the parish. But it isn't enough to build footpaths or bring mains gas etc. (some of the windfall has been spent on things like a new bus shelter etc.) but based on my FTTPoD (desktop survey) quote of £16K for my house, it might be the right sort of money to bring FTTP for the village.

I suggested this at a parish council meeting and they quite liked the idea, but given that it was my idea, it's now at the "can you get a quote for how much it would cost so we can decide?" and I'm at a bit of a loss as to what to do next, as everything I can find online seems to be based on either FTTPoD or a group of neighbours self funding - nothing where local government is contributing significant amounts to the project.

So, if anyone can give me any advice / has had any similar experiences I'd be very grateful. I'll keep this thread updated with news as this progresses (or not) so that anybody else who finds themselves in a similar situation in future will have the benefit of anything that I learn!

This is the site you need to use to start the CFP process with Openreach.
FTTPoD isn't really designed for your requirement, CFP is a lot more flexible.

https://communityfibre.openreach.co.uk/

You could try Gigaclear but I would have thought you are to small for them to be interested. There is a small competitor called Truespeed that you could ask. It may be that you will need to get properties to commit to purchase and doing that can be very hard work.

Mr Google found this.

1) Register on the CFP website,
2) They send a template form (excel spreadsheet) to fill in
3) Add the 130 properties details (address, post code, telephone number, exchange, cabinet and if school or business at address)
4) Return template form
5) They send you a quote for your communities contribution

Note: If there is a school then BT may make a larger contribution (it use to be up to £30,000 for a school) and if there are businesses then the Gigabit voucher scheme kicks in

My understanding is that there are very strict rules that prevent local councils from using public money to fund CFP's, it may be different for you if the money isn't considered public money or if the rules are different for parish councils.

Unless Gigaclear are already very close, then I don't expect they could help. They only build out from their existing network, and they are already struggling to make progress with many of their current projects.

Thanks everyone for the advice, I had looked at the Openreach CFP website before, but thought it wouldn't apply if there was local government funding (and obviously I need to warn the parish council to check into the legalities of that, which I certainly hadn't realised before).

I think we're both too small and out of area for Gigaclear, B4RN might be possible (they're about 30 miles away) but I suspect members of the parish council would be sceptical about supporting an altnet, because everyone has had bad experiences with a local WISP.