Almondsbury reaches 800 votes in broadband upgrade race

Bradley Stoke Liberal Democrats

Votes calling for the Almondsbury telephone exchange, which serves much of Bradley Stoke, to be upgraded to superfast fibre optic broadband have reached the 800 mark.

BT’s nationwide Race to Infinity competition calls on residents and business to vote for their local exchange to be upgraded and the five areas gaining the most votes, as a percentage of the total number of subscribers, will be fast-tracked through the upgrade process.

Leaflets advertising the competition have been delivered by enthusiastic residents and Town Councillors to more than 3,000 homes in the town, resulting in a surge in the voting figures for our two local exchanges, Almondsbury and Filton.

Recent contributors to the community-driven campaign include a group of Bradley Stoke Liberal Democrats (photo, above), who leafleted over two hundred homes last Saturday and Cllrs Brian Hopkinson and Sarah Pomfret (both Conservative, representing Stoke Lodge and Central Bradley Stoke), who have funded a fourth campaign banner.

The new banner is now on show over the shop front of  Global Equity, main agents for the Stroud & Swindon Building Society, on the A38 at Patchway.

Stroud & Swindon Building Socitey agency in Patchway

Cllr Hopkinson told The Journal:

“The facts are that our current BT exchanges are currently not able to support superfast broadband.”

“Taking part in what BT are calling the Race to Infinity gives everyone locally a chance to help all our residents get this superfast service.”

If you haven’t yet done so, please visit www.racetoinfinity.bt.com now to cast your vote.

Anyone with a landline is entitled to vote – you don’t need to be a BT customer. So even if you’re a Virgin Media customer already enjoying superfast broadband speeds, please take a few seconds to help the less fortunate in our community. Entering the competition does not oblige you to take any services from BT.

Current projections suggest that, if the momentum can be sustained, the Almondsbury exchange would be one of less than 20 in the country (out of 2,495 eligible exchanges) to satisfy the terms of BT’s Race to Infinity challenge, putting it in a very strong position for being included in the next round of fibre optic upgrades to be announced early next year.

The Journal is also currently promoting a ‘Cable my Street‘ campaign to get Virgin Media to complete its network in Bradley Stoke. The latest figures suggest that around 4,000 homes in 54 streets [list] don’t have access to the company’s cable network. So far, 110 residents have emailed to register their interest in taking up the company’s services should it decide to cable their street.

Local MP Jack Lopresti will once again be supporting the local broadband campaign at the Willow Brook Centre on Saturday (11th December) from 11am to 1pm.

Related link: Better Broadband Campaign (The Journal)

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7 comments

  1. Great to see everyone – town council, councillors, MP, businesses, residents – all working together on this. Looks like 1,000 votes is within reach, provided we can keep things going for the final three weeks.

    Disappointing that Bradley Stoke Matters isn’t doing more to help the campaign. Nothing on their website and nothing in their magazines. Hardly holding true to their “in the community for the community” motto.

  2. Echo Lawrence’s comments – very impressed with how everyone has pulled together. Really hope BT are reading. How much pressure do they need (we’ve been asking for going on three years now) do they need before they’ll sort this issue out? There are 9,000+ properties here – surely there is no economic reason to ignore Bradley Stoke any longer? They would make hundreds of thousands of pounds here.

  3. Fantastic result for 01454, unfortunately us poor sods in 0117 haven’t got a chance in hell because a very high percentage of the Filton coverage areas including Stoke Gifford and little Stoke have the cable option (Trust me, I have done the research)
    We were always fighting a losing battle down here in the deep south. I will seriously consider moving to 01454 if BT do the upgrades. Well done again to Almondsbury.

  4. A big thank you to Cllr Brian Hopkinson for photocopying about 1,500 campaign leaflets – at his own expense.

    Half of these have been delivered to homes in Bradley Stoke, the remainder will be taken home by pupils at Stoke Lodge and Little Stoke primary schools.

  5. Am I the only person who thinks that this is actually a poor result? If as Chris K states there are 9000+ properties in the Almondsbury area, with, say an average of 2 people per property, then 800 votes means that less than 5% of people have bothered to vote. I added my vote, and will be unaffected as am in 0117 area, and already get cable, but voted to support my neighbours.

    Come on people of BS, get voting!

  6. Sukie, it’s not possible to vote more than once per address. Almondsbury is currently on 9.3%.

    Almondsbury should hit 900 votes today. If we can keep the momentum going, we can be one of only about 20 exchanges (from 2,495 eligible) to reach 1,000 votes by the end of the competition on 31st December.

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