New Chair of Hailsham and District Chamber of Commerce welcomes Lightning Fibre to Hailsham

New Chair of Hailsham and District Chamber of Commerce welcomes Lightning Fibre to Hailsham

Clive Soper, pictured with Lightning Fibre Founder and CEO Ben Ferriman, welcomed the news that North Hailsham will very shortly be connectable to the brand-new Full Fibre broadband network built and operated by Lightning Fibre, a local firm Headquartered in Polegate.

Lightning Fibre started building its local network in Eastbourne in 2020, announced its expansion to Hailsham in March 2021 and completed the build in North Hailsham in March 2022. The final testing is almost completed, and the first customers will be enjoying hyper fast speeds (900Mbps or more) by Summer.  The build continues South, with the whole of Hailsham being connectable by Christmas 2022.

Lightning Fibre is a huge local success story, and since it was founded in Eastbourne in 2018, the company that has seen rapid growth in a very short amount of time, with almost 200 employees (95% of whom live in East Sussex).  Lightning Fibre is not using the old Openreach copper cable network that many mainstream internet providers are still using. They are laying a brand-new full fibre optic network. The response to Lightning Fibre’s service has been overwhelmingly positive and the network expansion is rapidly progressing. Current towns announced include Eastbourne, Hastings, St. Leonard's, Heathfield, Broad Oak, Bexhill and Hailsham.

As well as being active, paid-up members of the Chamber, Lighting Fibre has created a partnership with Hailsham Active, helping to fund projects designed to protect community spaces and support local grassroots sports teams and activities.

Chairman of Hailsham Active, Steve Wennington, commented: “We are very appreciative of the financial support and engagement from Lightning Fibre, enabling us to support many of our amazing local sports and recreation clubs.”.

The company has also sponsored Hailsham Cricket Club, Environment Hailsham and Hailsham Bonfire Society.  

If that wasn’t enough, Lightning Fibre is delighted to announce it will be the new Digital Partner of Hailsham Festival, and the headline sponsor of the Hailsham Festival ‘Digital Art Gallery’.  This enables artists of all ages, including young children, to upload their artwork to the Online Gallery, and supports the physical artwork displays that will appear in venues across Hailsham during the Festival in September.

The Chamber of Commerce is also supporting the new Business Improvement District bid, being developed now in conjunction with Wealden District Council, to bring renewable energy and clean fuel to the area. The BID is also proposing the need for a hyper fast Broadband network service within the Hailsham and District BID Area. A reliable High-speed Network will enable all businesses to become more efficient. The BID is setting up a Wi-Fi network helping visitors and residents to gain information about retail outlets and businesses in the BID area. This will increase footfall and make the area more attractive to new businesses.

Hailsham and District BID will facilitate businesses in the BID area, which includes Lightning Fibre, to become cleaner, greener and more environmentally aware, whilst enabling all businesses to become more efficient and more profitable.

The proposal will promote and support Environmentally Friendly Solutions to building efficiency, reduction of waste, adoption of new and compliant technology benefiting all businesses, and encouraging new,cutting-edge businesses into new enviro/renewal technology sector.

For more information go to www.LightningFibre.co.uk and www.hailshamchamberofcommerce.co.uk