Agenda item

Motion proposed by Councillor Whyborn, seconded by Councillor Britter :

“Council notes with concern that new housing developments are being put forward without adequate high-speed/super-fast broadband facilities, and that in many cases no suitable public funding streams exist for new estates in suburban areas.

Council therefore resolves to initiate a policy such that future planning applications for new developments will have a requirement to enable access to appropriate quality of broadband facilities at minimal set-up cost to the householder. Council therefore instructs officers to develop further detail to support the policy of this resolution at the earliest practical opportunity, and to incorporate this into the local plan.”

The following motion was proposed by Councillor Whyborn and seconded by Councillor Britter:

“Council notes with concern that new housing developments are being put forward without adequate high-speed/super-fast broadband facilities, and that in many cases no suitable public funding streams exist for new estates in suburban areas.

Council therefore resolves to initiate a policy such that future planning applications for new developments will have a requirement to enable access to appropriate quality of broadband facilities at minimal set-up cost to the householder. Council therefore instructs officers to develop further detail to support the policy of this resolution at the earliest practical opportunity, and to incorporate this into the local plan.”

Councillor Whyborn referred to the following amendment proposed by Councillor Tim Harman which had been circulated to all members before the meeting. It was formerly seconded by Councillor Andrew Chard.

Add the following to the motion proposed by Councillor Whyborn as set out in the Council agenda:

1. The work by officers should include consideration of the provisions of the EU broadband directive (2014/61/EU) which requires new developments from 2017 to be equipped with "high speed ready in building physical infrastructure" (with "high speed " meaning a "network which is capable of delivering broadband access services at speeds of at least 30 Mbps).

2. For those in existing homes which are suffering from poor broadband speeds, Council resolves to work closely with the County Council ( along with their Fastershire project) and commercial providers to ensure that all broadband cabinets in Cheltenham are upgraded to fibre capability as soon as possible, to ensure both new and existing developments benefit from faster broadband.

Councillor Whyborn indicated that he was very happy to accept the amendment provided that the speed of 30 Mbps referred to was in the EU directive. Councillor Harman confirmed that this was the case and therefore the original motion with this amendment became the substantive motion.

In proposing the amendment, Councillor Whyborn indicated that the motion related to a problem which was gathering pace.  BT was currently running out high-speed broadband to their cabinets all over town and similarly Virgin were upgrading all their systems. Hence residents in these favoured areas could update their broadband speeds easily. However there were areas in his ward and other parts of the town where this was not the case. He gave residents in Manor Farm as an example with broadband speeds of less than 1 Mbps and this could only be increased by paying a considerable sum to the telecom providers, currently £9,300 for BT.

As these areas were classified as urban areas they did not qualify for grants under the Fastershire scheme. Mostly they were newbuild areas where planning permission had been granted up to four years ago. Moving forward, broadband capability should be a standard for all new developments in the same way as any other utility. The intention of this motion was to strengthen the hand of Planning Committee and planning policy by incorporating this requirement into the local plan. He acknowledged that this would take time to develop but passing this motion today would give a strong direction of travel to developers.

Councillor Harman thanked the proposer for accepting his amendment and indicated that he would be very happy to support it as he felt it helped raise awareness of the issues around broadband.

Another member referred to the black holes for broadband in some urban areas including Gloucester and Cheltenham.  Speaking as the chair of the Gloucestershire Economic Development Scrutiny Committee, he highlighted that the committee had looked at this issue. The purpose of the Fastershire scheme was to provide a subsidy for broadband in rural areas where it is not economically viable for companies to do so. If providers are now saying that this also applies to some urban areas, then those areas should be able to request a public subsidy under the scheme. This needed to be sorted as it was outrageous that so many residents did not have access to a fast broadband link and this needed to be resolved as soon as possible.

The Leader supported the motion and said this would be a priority when officers got on to the detail of the local plan. He indicated that there may be a need to use some of the £100 K allocated in the budget to support this.

Another member highlighted that there was a trend to move to wireless 3G and now 5G so it was important to keep abreast of any new developments in technology.

Upon a vote the motion as amended was resolved unanimously.