Eastbourne-based alternative broadband builder and ISP Lightning Fibre, which over the past few years have been building a new Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network across parts of Sussex and Kent in England, has confirmed to ISPreview that they’ve hit staff with another round of redundancies and slowed their network build.
The operator, which has built to a number of locations like Eastbourne, Hastings, Hailsham, St Leonard’s, Heathfield and more, originally planned to cover 140,000 premises with their gigabit-capable network. But it remains unclear how many premises they actually reached before going through a rapid administration earlier this year and suffering some redundancies in the process (here).
NOTE: Lightning Fibre was acquired by existing backer Foresight Group earlier this year and put under a new company called LF Holdco2 Ltd.
However, back in August 2024 we noted that the operator sent a strong signal of their desire to “facilitate the extension of the network“, which came through an application for Code Powers from Ofcom (here). But the latest development suggests that the way they approach this may be going through some changes.
The situation came to light after ISPreview noticed a surge in redundancy notices toward the end of last week, seemingly all from the operator’s internal build team. Upon investigating this, we were told, by sources, that the operator had suddenly informed staff about a further round of redundancies – allegedly impacting up to 30 internal staff (mostly members of their build team). For a smaller altnet, this can have a big impact.
Lightning Fibre Statement to ISPreview
Our network is now mostly completed in Eastbourne, Hailsham, Heathfield, Hastings, Polegate and Tenterden, and our roll out will now slow down considerably.
We regret the redundancies that this decision has necessitated.
Whilst we operate in a highly-competitive and cost-sensitive market, we are continuing to grow both our network and our customer base, providing great value and service to our residential and business users.
We remain a committed local employer and our HQ will remain fully operational in Polegate, with our commercial teams (sales, installs, customer services) remaining based in Eastbourne.
According to our sources, Lightning Fibre may now be using the contractor ‘Nets‘ to continue their build going forward, albeit clearly at a slower pace. This is perhaps not a particularly surprisingly development, given the currently very difficult trading environment for many alternative networks. But that will come as little consolation to those who are either about to be out of work or have already gone.
Regular readers will know that a growing number of network operators, both big and small alike, have over the past couple of years moved to slow their network deployments (resulting in job losses) and switched their focus toward growing take-up to ensure some future stability. Such moves are a prudent course of action in the current climate of rising build costs and high interest rates, which makes it harder to raise fresh investment.
NOTE: The Foresight Group also backs other altnets, such as Connect Fibre and F&W Networks.