Rural communities have been left in limbo following a decision by Openreach to put its fibre broadband scheme on hold.

Openreach said the decision had been made “due to a surge in demand”.

Dwyfor Meirionnydd MP, Liz Saville Roberts, has called on Openreach to urgently resume its Fibre Community Partnership (FCP) scheme, and is particularly concerned about residents and businesses in Bryniau Brithdir, Dolgellau. The area has a longstanding community fibre application in place, having secured the necessary funding to progress with the scheme, but Openreach confirmed to the MP that all of its FCP schemes are under review, and all existing applications put on hold indefinitely.

Mrs Saville Roberts said: “I am deeply concerned Openreach has taken the decision to put all their FCP schemes on hold, a move which will understandably disappoint many communities such as residents in Brithdir who were led to believe that their scheme was progressing. Having reached this point in the process and with the necessary funding in place, my constituents are justifiably frustrated, as am I, at the sudden decision to put all existing FCP schemes on hold, including those nearing completion.

“I urge Openreach to provide my constituents and others in the same situation, with immediate clarity as to the status of their community fibre application and with a realistic and reliable timescale for completion of works.

“People living in rural areas are already at a disproportionate disadvantage when it comes to accessing fast, reliable broadband. Delays only serve to compound matters, further aggravating the digital divide between rural and urban areas.”

Brithdir resident Stuart Marsh said: “I had been chasing community fibre all through December, but they were very quiet, I just didn’t hear anything from them.

“Eventually we received a message to say all projects are on hold, but no reason was given.

“We’ve been promised and promised different things. We get so far. We get to the point of being almost there and it just comes to a grinding halt, and that’s the frustrating thing.”

An Openreach spokesperson said: “Nobody is doing more than Openreach to build an ultrafast ultra-reliable Full Fibre network across Wales.”

“We’re delighted that the community at Brithdir would like to proceed to the next stage of the process and we’ll work with them to secure funding to build the infrastructure and agree a timeline with them once an agreement is in place. We’re continuing to work with communities across Wales and the rest of the UK but our Fibre Community Partnership (FCP) has been an incredibly popular scheme and due to high levels of demand we had to temporarily pause new registrations while we worked through existing requests. During this time any new communities that have not yet registered their interest in Full Fibre from Openreach can still do so on Openreach.com. We’ll be back in contact if FCP registrations open up in their area.

“Our local community experts will be in touch with the residents of Brithdir in the coming days to confirm next steps and we hope that they will soon be able to enjoy some of the fastest broadband speeds in Europe.”