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  Aileen West posted an update in the group Rosley and Westward Community Group:   11 hours, 52 minutes ago · View

  We are the Rosley and Westward community group. We think that the best way to gain better broadband is for as many communities as possible to band together and make ourselves into a viable economic possibility.
  Anyone interested in this idea is invited to join the Rosley and Westward Community group on this site. The ward is a good starting point for cohesion as we already have your champion as our Councillor. A broad sweep from the Solway Plain in the direction of Penrith would surely make sense in the same way as the parishes of the Eden valley are working together. If we all join together then the proposed procurement process for us won’t be necessary as we’d have gone down the CIC route.
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  Anne Nichols joined the group WiFiPie & CHIPS.. With everything.   12 hours, 45 minutes ago · View

  
  
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  Aileen West posted an update in the group The Pitfalls of Procurement:   12 hours, 58 minutes ago · View

  I think that the idea of a voucher is certainly very attractive: the major hurdle would be to establish a fair but effective means of deploying the vouchers. I’m less than convinced that the Parish Councils are the ideal vehicle as so many are conspicuous by their absence on this site. If we are agreed that groups of neighbouring parishes will probably be the most cost effective route to rolling out ftth via the CIC model then would it be possible to allocate vouchers directly to those CICs, once they have been set up, based upon the numbers which have signed up. If every household would need to pay a connection fee of around £150 then a voucher to the value of £100 would considerably defray a cost which could well make people on very low incomes decide they were excluded by the upfront cost. I realise that the remaining £50 could still lead to social exclusion but equally a decent CIC could surely make provison for that eventuality

  
  
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  Aileen West joined the group The Pitfalls of Procurement   13 hours, 14 minutes ago · View

  
  
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  David Boulton joined the group Dentdale & Garsdale Superfast Broadband   15 hours, 36 minutes ago · View

  
  
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  Matthew Kaunz joined the group Dentdale & Garsdale Superfast Broadband   21 hours, 18 minutes ago · View

  
  
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  Tony Roberts joined the group The Pitfalls of Procurement   1 day ago · View

  
  
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  Charles Paxton posted an update in the group The Pitfalls of Procurement:   1 day, 7 hours ago · View

  I have had family visiting and am catching up on email exchanges. I think the voucher idea has real potential, not least in speeding up the process and giving our people a useful defrayment of their set-up cost.

  
  
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  Charles Paxton joined the group The Pitfalls of Procurement   1 day, 7 hours ago · View

  
  
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  John Colton posted an update in the group Dentdale & Garsdale Superfast Broadband:   1 day, 19 hours ago · View

  Tony and I attended a lively and interesting meeting last night. The meeting was organised by Libby as a way for Mike Kiely of BDUK to provide some insight into the process of getting broadband to the Upper Eden communities as the vanguard part of the Cumbria pilot.
  Originally I was asked to attend and possibly talk for a few minutes on model duct systems. I went armed with a holdall full of props to show, but the meeting had strict time limits and with several people attending, expressing views and asking questions there was no time to show what duct systems look like.
  Mike answered questions as best he could, but being careful that he did not divulge any information that he could not also give to any bidders in the procurement process.
  The key points I took away from the meeting were:
  1) the procurement process will be 9 months;
  2) communities need to be organised so the county council (and others?) know who they are talking to and the area they represent;
  3) larger bodies will be easier for the county council to deal with and may also be heard better, this would imply that smaller communities should cluster together;
  4) the project is Cumbria wide so we need to cooperate and work together.
  5) backhaul costs are a key issue for most communities and this point was made to Mike.
  These points are a brief summary of what I took from the meeting and are not necessarily the views of others at the meeting, and are in no particular order!

  
  

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