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Engineers from Hull-based broadband ISP KCOM, which have deployed their own full fibre (FTTP) network across a big chunk of East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire in England, recently took a break from their normal work to help the BBC’s DIY SOS team and the Gladiators to build a new, purpose-built youth centre in the market town of Beverley.
According to the BBC’s summary on iPlayer, the Gladiator’s Special (Episode 5 of Series 34) saw the DIY SOS team step in to help a youth club that had lost its home by building a new one on the edge of a local park. As usual, this involved a number of local trades committing resources to help the Gladiators and DIY SOS crew, managed by TV presenter Nick Knowles, to complete the new building.
Dozens of KCOM volunteers also took part in building the new Cherry Tree Youth Hub (CTYH) from scratch in five days during the summer of 2025 (although the TV episode of this has only just aired). The operator also connected the club up to their broadband network too. As well as the BBC episode linked above, you can also see a brief clip from KCOM’s side below.
Jessica Paddison, KCOM’s Business Operation Team Leader, said: “It’s been the best project I’ve ever worked on – and I’ve done quite a few projects in my time at KCOM. It was just a field at the beginning, so we had to put all the network in – design all that and assemble a team to put it together. It was a big job, but the guys did brilliantly to pull it together.”