The community driven Digital Dales (Fibre GarDen) project, was set to bring Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband to 580 premises in the villages of Garsdale and Dentdale.
The project is costing around £650,000 to deploy and had already attracted opposition from some local politicians
While it appeared all obstacles had been overcome and work began on laying the 64km long fibre optic route in mid-April, it seems the project has yet another roadblock.
Premises were due to have access to the new broadband by summer 2015, but in May the project's organisers admitted that they were “struggling to secure the release of funds which had been allocated to the project by DEFRA“.
This led to a delay in construction - although it was believed that work would continue - but little has been heard since.
In a more recent update however, the ITS Technology Group which is overseeing the construction said: ”We came across difficulties that resulted in a cessation of on-site work in July and we have, since then, been putting in place more robust arrangements with our contractor to ensure we can get the project on track at the earliest.
ITS Tech initially hired TS Trenching and related sub-contractors to do most of the civil works, but the update revealed that they had been replaced by MAP.
In a number of angry social media posts, contractors including TS Trenching have now claimed that they have not been paid for by ITS Tech and have now stopped work.
Meanwhile the latest update from Fibre GarDen is that the project is still going ahead and has a tentative completion date of 13th November 2015.
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