MINUTES OF WEST DEREHAM PARISH COUNCIL MEETING

HELD AT ST. ANDREWS CHURCH

THURSDAY FEBRUARY 2ND 2012

Present: Mrs Claire Cann – Chairman, Mrs Pam Bullas, Mr Mark Dawson, Mr Tom Foy, Ms Paula Kellingray, Mrs Ruth Marsters, Mrs Pam Walker.

12 members of the public

Papers presented to Councillors: Clerks timesheet, expenditure spreadsheet, Glazewing Report, Leaflet regarding wireless broadband pilot.

Mr Jeff Jones was in attendance prior to the start of the meeting to give an update regarding Norfolk County Council’s plans to provide Broadband in West Dereham.

Norfolk County Council (NCC) is carrying out a pilot project in three Norfolk broadband ‘not spot’ areas (Lyng, West Dereham and Hilgay) to provide an internet service to residents. These areas would be deemed market failures as the cost of commercial provision would not be justified.

Broadband is to be provided via a piggyback service from Hilgay School. A 10 Megabits link is provided to the school of which 5mb could be shared between Hilgay and West Dereham. The service would be provided through installation of a mast at West Dereham Village Hall. A concrete base and power would be wanted for the mast and consideration is needed as to how electricity might be provided for the mast. Should the mast be connected to the Village Hall for power provision the guarantee for rendering of the Hall would be invalidated; therefore power may need to be obtained directly from the electricity network and this may take time to organise.

It is not known how long the wireless broadband would be needed in West Derehamas NCC’s Better Broadband for Norfolk project will enable superfast broadband for as much of Norfolk as possible by March 2015. Some properties (around 10%), however, will not be able to receive superfast broadband and in these cases a minimum of 2 Mb/s will be available. It was questioned whether it is worth installing the wireless broadband pilot in the village if Better Broadband for Norfolk is to be rolled out from 2013.

The cost for users to connect to the Wireless Broadband Pilot is estimated to be in the region of