GigaHubs Project

The Digital Infrastructure Team at Oxfordshire County Council has secured funding from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) for a project to install full fibre broadband infrastructure to a range of public service sites in Oxfordshire. This is under the DCMS initiative known as ‘Gigahubs.’ This workstream is part of the £5bn DCMS Project Gigabit aimed at securing gigabit connectivity to at least 85% of residential and business premises in the UK.

Read more about Gigahubs: Gigahubs: key information - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Oxfordshire County Council has agreed to add investment to the DCMS funding for this project, extending the scope to include a number community centres, additional schools, GP Practices and libraries. The county council funding is sourced from income generated under our Better Broadband for Oxfordshire Programme, due to the very high take-up of superfast broadband services under the contract with BT Openreach.

Our Gigahubs project marks the first of its type under Project Gigabit, with Oxfordshire County Council investment of £5m and £2m investment from DCMS. 

Following a procurement, Oxfordshire County Council has selected Neos Networks to connect some 200 public service sites with gigabit capable broadband, which will include a range of:

  • Schools
  • GP Practices
  • Fire Stations
  • Libraries
  • Leisure Centres
  • Community Centres
  • Museums

Neos Networks has sub-contracted Openreach, Virgin Media Business and Gigaclear to build, manage and operate the new infrastructure, along with Neos dark fibre. The implementation is managed by Neos, with the initial phases completed in March 2022 and work ongoing.

The below map details all sites included within our Gigahubs project.

This map includes 2 Layers found by clicking the "Layer List" icon (located in the top right hand corner of the map). This allows for alternate views of the project, either by "Site Type" or by "Delivery Status".

In addition to the Layers function, specific sites can be identified using the Filter function (also located in the top right-hand corner) and these can be broken down further by filtering on "District" also.

For any additional queries, these can be directed to the Digital Infrastructure Team using the contact form found here: Contact | Digital Infrastructure Programme (digitalinfrastructureoxfordshire.co.uk)

 

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The outcomes of Oxfordshire’s Public Sector Hub Sites Project will:

  • Provide significantly improved connectivity to c.200 public service sites in mostly rural locations where fibre connectivity is difficult and expensive to provision
  • Build upon Oxfordshire’s wider commitment to improve connectivity across the county through Oxfordshire County Council’s, Digital Infrastructure Programme
  • Help Oxfordshire County Council to realise its ambitions for equipping community centres to become ‘community working hubs’ offering enhanced community services, health and social care support and reducing the need for people to travel further afield to access these services
  • Assist Oxfordshire County Council in meeting its objective for net-zero carbon emissions by 2030<
  • Enable Oxfordshire County Council to migrate to lower cost, faster broadband connections for its office buildings
  • Help with digital inclusion for Oxfordshire residents as additional fibre broadband connections will be delivered around the targeted hub sites

Please note: any public service sites that are not in scope for delivery under the Gigahubs project have been indicated in supplier commercial plans over the next 3yrs. IF you have any queries relating to this project, please contact the team at: broadband@oxfordshire.gov.uk

 

What our communities are saying?

Tadmarton Village Hall

The provision of Full Fibre to the Premises under the Gigahubs project has brought great benefits to Tadmarton Village Hall.  We are always looking for ways to improve the services we offer and full fibre enables us to live stream films for our film club and stream YouTube dance and fitness videos for our Dance Fitness class without interruption due to poor connectivity.  The wi-fi coverage throughout the hall is vastly improved.  The excellent speeds and connectivity has enabled us to share our full fibre broadband with St Nicholas’ Church situated next to us, making it possible for them to live stream services via zoom to parishioners who are unable to attend in person.  All this, along with the added bonus of 3 years free broadband costs! This will be a huge benefit to our community. Thank you.

 

Snells Hall - East Hendred

The Full Fibre connection that the hall now has through the Gigahubs project has proved a great enhancement over the previous broadband service, both in reliability and speed.  Users of the hall have found the service very useful and having it has brought an end to the complaints about internet speed that we used to contend with.  The service has made the hall more attractive, which is of course great news for the hall’s management committee.

 

Hethe Village Hall

There is a bit of a buzz around the village since Full Fibre broadband was delivered by the Oxfordshire Digital Infrastructure Team  

This service is new to Hethe Village Hall, it allows classes and events run by the hall a new dimension to what they offer; for example, the gardening club can live stream meetings from guest presenters to both attendees in the hall and those who may not be able to attend in person. Yoga classes can Youtube yoga channels and the Parish Council can share the online planning applications for discussion, the list goes on. Many thanks it is a gamechanger

 

Weston-on-the-Green Memorial Village Hall

As we look to diversify the opportunities for the local community to use the hall as well as attract the all-important commercial bookings that allow us to maintain the hall, excellent wi-fi is a vital offering. Not only does this service add value to those booking the hall, in an area with a notoriously bad phone signal, we know villagers regularly connect to the wi-fi from the gardens in order to make calls and use the internet, even when the hall isn't open!

 

Mollington Village Hall

In an increasingly digital world, being connected is vital. We are now able to offer more services to our community – streaming of events, ability to access and download music to our events for booked parties has been of great benefit and something we couldn’t offer before.  Making the connection accessible to people using the hall has enabled them to stay connected and use the hall in not only a different way than before, but much more regularly as well. We would like to create a hub for people that regularly work from home, so they don’t have to feel so isolated.

We have also installed a smart thermostat, which means we can control our heating remotely which will be much appreciated by those that attend on early wintry mornings. Now taking this a step further and we are investigating integrating our heating system with the bookings calendar and making the hall warm and welcoming automatically when we have a booking!

 

Woodcote Community Centre

Karen Woolley, from Woodcote Community Centre, said: “We’re always looking for ways to improve our services and facilities for local groups and individuals who hire rooms in our premises. Being able to provide good Wi-Fi connection has become an increasingly important aspect of our bookings, so we are delighted with the new full fibre broadband that’s been recently installed.”

 

Faringdon Library

Mark McCree, Service Manager of the council’s library service said: “The upgrade to our broadband service at Faringdon Library is having a noticeably positive benefit on service delivery. We are seeing much faster speeds on public computers, staff PCs, self-service kiosks, and public Wi-Fi connections. The improved Wi-Fi now supports flexible working, meetings and hotdesking for visiting staff.”