Billionaire brings broadband to his village by digging two-mile trench across estate
Better broadband
‘It is no good standing with your hand out because no one will give you anything’
AS THE billionaire owner of one of the most successful fashion chains in the world, it will be little surprise that Stefan Persson has a get-up-and-go attitude.
Now it seems that Sweden’s richest man has inspired a similar ethos in his staff, who have rolled up their sleeves to bring superfast broadband not only to his estate, but to an entire village.
Fed up with the “appalling” speeds in Axford which hampered the rural community and their business ventures, Mr Persson’s Ramsbury Estate took matters into their own hands and dug a 2-mile (3km) trench across his land.
The Wiltshire village was not on the map to get a superfast service within the next four years, but the efforts mean that they will join the 3 per cent of the country which gets a state-ofthe-art fibre connection.
Despite their endeavours, their hopes of bringing life in Axford into the 21st century by Christmas were thwarted when BT Openreach said they were too busy complete the linkup. It is hoped that they will now be connected by spring.
Mr Persson, whose father Erling founded H&M in 1947, is estimated to be worth almost £15billion. His estate stretches over 10,000 acres of farmland and prime hunting, shooting and fishing countryside.
But one thing was hampering his business ventures on the estate – the impossibly slow broadband.
Alistair Ewing, the estate manager, said: “We have got appalling speed on our broadband. We have got a brewery business, a smokehouse and the farm and everything is done online and it is awful. So we approached BT along with a couple of guys in the village who were pretty proactive and we asked what it would cost to put a system in.”
The village was not even mentioned on a superfast broadband roll-out planned for 2020-21 – meaning it could have been years before they were connected.
When they inquired, Ramsbury Estates were told that they would be charged around £170k for BT Openreach to install the infrastructure needed for the high speed connection.
Mr Ewing said: “We decided that was not acceptable, so we thought OK, we will do all the digging and trenching and laying directly.”
The team rolled up their sleeves and over the course of two weeks dug a trench across 3km of Mr Persson’s land, knocking £90,000 off the price of the broadband installation for the farm and the villagers. Mr Persson was kept up to date with the work, which will allow BT to pull the fibre cable to the village from nearby Aldbourne.
Nick Swan, an Axford resident, said it was an “absolutely very generous gesture” by Mr Persson, and Diann Barnett, parish councillor, added: “We will now have broadband and it is all down
to him – 77 houses will get it at a cost of about £600 each.”
Mr Ewing said: “We have some social responsibility as a large estate, so that is what we have done. The villagers have got this get up and go attitude – it is no good standing with your hand out because no one will give you anything.”
He added: “Now we are just waiting for BT. We had hoped it would be up and running by Christmas but you are dealing with a monopoly and they have got us by the proverbials.
“We pushed hard in October to get it done for them to come and link everyone up and now they say they are too busy. We are a bit annoyed, but on the other hand we have already lived with it for several years.”