The ‘planning and survey’ stage of the project started last November. This is very good news as the clock started then for the 12 months that Openreach are allowed in which to complete the entire installation.
Many people in Bolney were sent an email by Openreach early today which appeared to suggest that they should pledge their voucher. Openreach have now admitted this was a miscommunication. There is no need for any further action at this time for anyone who has validated their voucher. If you are not sure about this please look towards the bottom of this update for advice.
For anyone who would like to get the benefit of ultrafast broadband speeds it is still possible for residents whose addresses are on the project address list to get ultrafast broadband under this scheme. The steps required are:
1 Pledge your voucher by going to the Openreach portal:
https://www.openreach.com/connectmycommunity
and follow the instructions. It is beneficial to the project as a whole if you are able to pledge as a business, even a one man self-employed person, because the business voucher is worth £2000 more than a residential one.
2 look out for an email from:
gigabit.vouchers@notifications.service.gov.uk
3 and validate your voucher by responding to this email within 28 days.
4 Then look out for an email from
which confirms that your voucher has been issued and you are included in the project.
Please let the Project Team know that you have pledged on the Openreach portal by emailing fttp@bolney.com . Some people have had problems with receiving the email from notifications.service.gov.uk and we do not know why. We are hoping that our contact at Openreach will be able to tell us when the DCMS have sent out these emails so that we can prompt you to look for yours. Then if there are any problems they should get resolved more easily.
If you are unsure whether you have validated your voucher and are definitely in the project, the best thing to do is to try pledging on the Openreach portal as given above. If you have already got a voucher for your premises, you will be told that a voucher has been issued already. Only one voucher is allowed for each address.
If you have any further queries or problems please contact the Broadband Project Team on fttp@bolney.com and we will do our best to help you. There are some FAQ’s following these updates.
