Cumbernauld excluded from superfast funding

There may be trouble brewing in parts of Cumbernauld which has the M80
running through the heart of it. On one hand the southern side of the motorway
has widespread availability of Virgin Media cable broadband and FTTC from
Openreach, but cross the motorway and there is almost no cable broadband and
from what we can see probably three (near Earl’s Hill, Blackwood Road and
Carrickstone Road) fibre cabinets providing service.

The problem of Cumbernauld is in the news because of a local press story about the area being excluded from
£700,000 of funding from the North Lanarkshire Council and Scottish Government.
The exclusion arises because of maps issued by the Scottish Government and
subsequent cross referencing to identify areas that would benefit the most
economically from further investment.

“The Government provided broadband maps showing areas to be commercially
developed for high-speed next generation broadband.

We cross-referenced all these areas with the council’s Local Plan to identify
priority areas which might require financial assistance to allow them to
benefit. Our aim is to invest in broadband with the aim of maximising economic
impact.

We are very well aware of the concerns of Cumbernauld residents and have passed
their comments and submissions to the Scottish Government.”

Paul Jukes North Lanarkshire Council’s executive director of Environmental
Services

With the Openreach FTTC roll-out not complete it is possible that there is
in-fill planned for the Cumbernauld area which will see all the cabinets
enabled on the exchange, but if this was the case then the authorities should
have communicated this to the local residents. In terms of broadband speeds
they appear to be in the 1 to 2 Mbps range for the affected area and many would
have assumed that only a small amount of investment would be needed to benefit
these slow streets as FTTC was already deployed in the area.

Most English local authorities have planned their maps down to postcode
level, but this issue in Cumbernauld does carry the small suggestion that the
Scottish Goverment with its very high level view may have worked to a exchange
level map.