Since the Beeching cuts of the early sixties removed their station, Baschurch has had an infrastructure problem. Some 10 miles north of Shrewsbury and 15 miles from the M54, the 1,500 population have, hitherto, been off the pace in the connectivity stakes. This is all about to change. Baschurch has been named by BT as one of six superfast broadband hubs to be delivered in 2012. This follows a nationwide contest to discover where there is greatest demand to get online. Well done them.
The six communities which garnered the highest proportion of support from their residents were Baschurch, Blewbury in Oxfordshire, Caxton and Madingley in Cambridgeshire, Innerleithen in Tweeddale and Whitchurch in Hampshire. Each will get a broadband hub by early 2012 that will allow download speeds of up to 40 megabits per second.
BT is spending £2.5bn on its network to reach two-thirds of homes by 2015 and the project is part of a publicly funded drive to get broadband to all parts of the UK. £830m will be diverted from BBC licence fee revenues over the next seven years to help pay for extending fibre networks to rural areas.
The UK Government wants every community to be within reach of high-speed digital infrastructure using optical fibre by 2015 – potentially, a more ambitious target than the 2Mbps aspiration offered by the previous administration. The Government wants local authorities to bid for public subsidies to build the broadband hubs though how this fits with the financial straightjacket planned for the next five years is not clear.
Clearly, the growth of fast broadband infrastructure is a good thing. For some years now the UK has been significantly behind other European countries in the delivery of capacity in this area, putting the country at an increasing competitive disadvantage. Whether allowing local pressure groups and Local Authorities to set the spatial priorities for investment is the best way forward is, at very least, open to debate.
It sits very nicely with the “Big Society” ethos, but may have limited economic effects. Comparing the six chosen locations, with one exception, they are all satellites of bigger towns with the employment opportunities that offers. Bar one, Innerleithen in the Scottish Borders, they are all significantly above average on indicators of economic activity, job level and the level of qualifications in the workforce. Even Innerleithen sees above average economic activity and qualifications.
This is not a measure targeted at improving the economic infrastructure in disadvantaged areas, just mildly inconvenienced ones. It hardly dispels the feeling that “Big Society” actually translates as “Devil take the hindmost.”
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