A DIGITAL divide separating Compton Bassett into Superfast Broadband haves and have-nots has triggered a question in the House of Lords.

Some villagers were connected to Superfast Broadband over 18 months ago and can download at 200MBs per second while others in the village complain that they are lucky to get 2MB per second. According to parish councillor Julian Barlow, the installation was stopped when British Telecom, financed by Wiltshire Council, reached a certain point in the village.

“Originally we were led to believe that BT would run cables right through the whole of Compton Bassett and we would all be connected, “said Mr Barlow.

“Then strangely earlier this year BT stopped half way through the village and those of us who remained unconnected were told by the council that a new supplier, Gigaclear, were due to connect the rest of the village before March 2019.

"It has gone all quiet since then and only through pestering have we now found that the rest of Compton Bassett has been bounced to the end of 2019/2020 with no firm confirmation of a date from Gigaclear or the Council. It has produced a kind of digital apartheid in the village with those on one side of the village offered a different level of service than our friends and neighbours on the other, many of whom were up and running in 2017. Central Government say they want to support rural broadband but it has split this village in two and many who pay the same council tax as those connected, feel it is simply not fair.”

Lord Nigel Jones of Cheltenham asked in the House of Lords why the installation had stopped, and was told in a written answer that: "This information is held by the local authority project team - in this case Wiltshire Online. Decisions on what areas are in or out of scope are taken locally."

When Wiltshire Councillor Christine Crisp asked why the roll-out was incomplete, Coun John Thomson, with a responsibility for communications, responded: “We roll out on a best value for money basis. Compton Basset has been a complex village to serve and a solution has spanned two phases that happen to be with different suppliers as we follow the appropriate procurement process.

"However, the net result for Compton Bassett is far from a digital divide, as without our investment there would be no digital upgrade, as no commercial provider had plans for the area. We are working with Gigaclear on their build plans to understand if the changes they are making to their backhaul and processes will provide an improvement to the current build expectations for the village."