Levens B4RN Volunteer Group disbands after 5 years with over 300 connections live

A letter from Levens B4RN:

Dear resident,

It is now over five years since our small group of volunteers started work to bring B4RN hyper-fast broadband into Levens.

All 650 properties in the parish are now able to benefit from the service and over 300 have already taken a connection.

To enable this to happen £365,000 was raised in shares, £500,000 has been secured from the government’s voucher scheme, £15,000 came in a grant from SLDC and £10,000 came from the Department for Education.

Our project has required the installation in the ground of over eighty chambers and more than seventy kilometres of ducting, made possible by over one hundred wayleaves granted free by landowners.

We are now disbanding - our job is done.

If you have any problem with your B4RN connection please call B4RN on 01524 555887.

If you don’t have a B4RN connection but would now like one, please go to their website.

B4RN pay a dig grant of £150 to each of the 300 connected properties but only 65 of those residents have used at least £50 of this to make a donation to Levens Charity in appreciation of the huge amount of unpaid work carried out by our volunteers. If you have not yet made a donation but would now like to do so, a form for this purpose is on the reverse of this letter. Alternatively, donations may be made via JustGiving:

Finally our thanks go to B4RN, SLDC, Levens Parish Council, Levens Charity and to all those who have enabled the project to succeed and to secure for our parish a world class service which is without equal in the UK.

Levens B4RN Volunteer Group, May 2022

Since 2016, there have been a phenomenal amount of volunteer hours dedicated to the project to make it a reality. Here's a short, interactive timeline of the key points along the Levens B4RN project timeline to date.