Original article ISPreview UK:Read More
Rural broadband provider Gigaclear, which has already deployed their full fibre (FTTP) network to cover 612,000 UK premises, has this morning finally announced the start of their roll-out under Project Gigabit’s East Gloucestershire (Lot 18) contract. The £10.81m deployment is currently expected to help upgrade 3,547 premises in hard to reach areas.
The original contract was first awarded all the way back in February 2024 (here) and was initially valued at £16.6m (state aid), with a goal of extending gigabit-capable broadband to an additional 4,400 premises in remote rural areas. But this shrank in size during August 2025 “due to [the] removal of 899 premises” from its scope (here) and ended up being valued at £10.81m – possibly due to nearby commercial builds reaching more premises than expected or some of the premises were too expensive to tackle.
Quite why it’s taken this long for Gigaclear to announce the start of their construction phase for Lot 18 remains unclear, but today’s update does confirm that the first homes and businesses are already live. The roll-out is expected to reach a total of 18 rural communities across rural East Gloucestershire.
The locations include Alderton, Andoversford, Aston Somerville, Brockhampton, Cold Aston, Coln St Aldwyns, Great Rissington, Hawling, Kemble, Lower Slaughter, Miserden, North Cerney, Quenington, Stanton, Tarlton, Teddington, Upper Slaughter and Woodmancote.
Breaking news.. more to follow..