Fibre GarDen Forges Forward

Fibre GarDen, the community interest company which has been set up to build a fibre-optic network to every property in Garsdale and Dentdale, has moved several steps closer to bringing super-fast broadband to the communities.

In January the Fibre GarDen board was joined by Adrian Gordon and Tony Robinson. Adrian brings experience of developing internet based services to the project and

Tony works in mobile telephony software.

The New Year also brought excellent news in the form of another successful grant application which follows DEFRA's commitment to provide £157,500 to the project. Now, the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority has demonstrated support for the project through a grant of £14,900 from its Sustainable Development Fund. This grant enables Fibre GarDen to secure the legal advice it needs to present a share prospectus to the community as the second phase of our fundraising. That advice will be provided by the Newcastle law firm Muckle LLP who won the award for Regional Law Firm of the Year, 2012. We are grateful to Muckle LLP who will provide some of the advice free of charge. We anticipate that we will be bringing the share prospectus to the communities in April.

A different part of the ongoing work is the detailed mapping of the network route. In this, we have received a lot of support from Garsdale Design who have provided us with mapping software. Tom Woof, who lives at Greenwood Haw Farm, is working along the dales to confirm land ownership along the proposed network route. Once he has done so, we will approach landowners to secure permission to build the network.

Simultaneously, we have published our State Aid Notice for the required duration of 30 days with no challenges and are on the point of issuing our Invitation To Tender (ITT) to suppliers of materials and services.

We are also fortunate to have secured significant support from YDNP who are providing us with advice about land designations such as protected verges, common-land and stewardship. This will enable us to design the route to minimise environmental impact and simplify planning issues. We are delighted that YDNP has embraced the project so whole-heartedly and are grateful for their support.

2013 will be a big year for Fibre GarDen and we look forward to bringing you more news in the coming months.

Andrew Fleck - Chairman