Property developer Grosvenor announces London broadband roll-out
Grosvenor Britain & Ireland, one of the country’s leading property developers and landowners, has announced that it will work alongside a broadband provider to combat the problem of poorly-connected areas that remain in London.
The developer has reportedly signed a co-investment deal, with an initial tranche of £2 million, with network operator Openreach to upgrade broadband connectivity services across Grosvenor properties in central London. It has been described by commentators as “the first of its kind”
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The deal between the private and public sector enterprises will see Grosvenor invest in what is called London’s largest ‘single estate’ renovation for broadband, Wi-Fi and mobile connections alongside local authorities.
Grosvenor’s estate covers some 130 residential and business properties across the London boroughs of Mayfair and Belgravia, reflecting around 600 individual homes and businesses. Both are currently ranked among the slowest five per cent of regions in the UK for broadband speeds.
The new scheme will boost download speeds to up to 200 times faster than the UK average, however, and into the top five per cent of areas for broadband speed.
Though the new development will only comprise a very small proportion of Openreach’s target of fitting 2 million UK premises with FTTP services before 2020, similar deals with other land owners are anticipated.
Openreach also says that further work will be done to increase speeds up to 80 Mbps across hundreds of other properties in the area via slower fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) services.
The deal with Grosvenor will also see the local public given free access to a Wi-Fi service offering speeds of up to 300 Mbps.
Will Bax, executive director for the London estate at Grosvenor, said the investment was the first part of his firm’s “20-year vision” for the area and its role as one of many “more enterprising and active spaces” in the capital.
He added: “This digital upgrade, the first of its kind in a landmark deal, confirms our commitment to the long-term vision we have for this great London estate.”
