APPLETON Parish Council has rejected an application from a residents’ group for a grant towards the cost of a new fibre cabinet for superfast broadband access.
The Hillside Fibre Broadband group represents residents of Hillside Road, Acton Avenue and London Road, Appleton – an area which suffers from slow broadband speeds.
Residents were seeking a £2,000 grant from the parish council and had also applied for a £2,000 grant from South Warrington Neighbourhood Board.
BT Openreach would fund £2,500 and the residents would fund the remaining £3,225.
In addition, the group were asking that the parish council sign the contract with BT to be the responsible legal entity for the work.
But the council pointed out that there were other areas of Appleton with slow broadband speeds.
The council did not have funds available to pay for upgrades throughout the parish – and there were many roads with similar or slower broadband speeds.
Council rejects residents’ bid for broadband grant
22 Comments
2 Comments
Couple of hundred homes I guess, each one chips in £20….£4,000…..sorted. Indeed looking at the article they only need £3,225…so interesting that they were trying to claim grants of £4k.
Good point Paul, if these people want the luxury of superfast broadband it’s up to them to sort it out! Why don’t they put pressure on BT by switching provider? There isn’t enough money to pay for basics without people expecting cash from the Parish funds to provide them with luxuries. There are communities just the other side of the Stretton roundabout who haven’t even got a gas supply yet and some who, when gas mains were in recent years laid had to pay substantial sums to get pipes from the mains to their individual dwellings.
The suppliers of utilities and BT make well enough profits to fund upgrades and they should be forced do so.