Freedom Fibre – update 20 December 2022

The last meeting of the Parish Council was on 13 December 2022. The agenda included an item on the Freedom Fibre project.

An extract from the minutes that relates to this item is below:

“The council discussed the Freedom Fibre (FF) project to deliver high speed fibre-to-the-premises (FFTP) to a number of properties in Comberbach. There had been a great deal of activity during November when Freedom Fibre had communicated their proposals through a series of notices posted on the Locke and Fairclough estates in the village. The proposals would involve installing telegraph poles to enable the delivery of full fibre.

Representatives of the Parish Council had met with representatives of Freedom Fibre and a representative of CW&C to investigate what other options might be available instead of the erection of telegraph poles on the estates. A further investigation of the existing Openreach ducting found that this was not an option due to the poor state of repair, or non-existence of any ducting. An opportunity to use the Government’s Gigabit Voucher Scheme was still being investigated with assistance from CWAC, however, this option would require a majority of residents to sign up for the Freedom Fibre TalkTalk broadband service.

The Parish Council agreed it was neutral on this issue but was working hard to ensure there were good and timely communications to residents to enable informed decisions to be made.”