Voneus thank you to North Scale Community Centre

A free internet connection and cash donation are helping a Walney Island community centre in its ambitious 10-year growth plans.

Rural broadband specialists Voneus are currently bringing gigabit wireless broadband to the Island, with the first customers in North Scale already signed up.

North Scale Community Centre is acting as a welfare hub for Voneus engineers and as a thank you Voneus has contributed to the ongoing refurbishment of the hall including insulation, paneling and decorating and the total refurbishment of the ladies toilets.

While a free internet connection will help with the roll out of extra online services to support users of the centre.

The community centre is the hub of the northern part of the Island and is run by North Scale Residents Association. It regularly hosts toddler groups, tabletop sales, exercise classes, family fun days, dance classes and is one of the busiest Warm Hubs in Barrow.

Warm Hubs exist all over the country as places within a local community where people are assured of a safe, warm and friendly environment and where they can enjoy refreshments and social activity while accessing information and advice.

Speaking on behalf of the Residents Association, treasurer Tim Haughin said: “The last few years have seen a real turnaround in growth at the centre. We’ve already refurbished the play area, and are in the process of installing benches, footpaths and a safe route through to the caravan park.

“We are looking at plans to look after an additional 7.5 acres adjacent to the centre in order to provide a purpose built wildlife sanctuary, somewhere for families to go and for children to learn. It’s really important to us that we cater for everyone.

“We have one of the busiest warm hub in Barrow and a free internet connection from Voneus will enable us to provide so much more to our visitors including helping people with their online lives from banking to booking events.”

The Warm Hub has also received a grant to create an engineering workshop to target more make users, and hopes to soon be able to offer a men’s hub.

Tim added: “Our ambitions are huge and we are a long way from where we want to be. This is a 10-year project with the long-term goal being to not only see year on year growth, but also an impact on the local community that outweighs everything else.”

The Voneus gigabit wireless broadband build on Walney is well underway in the North Scale area of the Island with the first customer installations scheduled for the beginning of July. The new network will deliver fast, reliable internet by leveraging millimeter-wave technology, enabling efficient and significantly improved connectivity for Walney Island residents.  

Voneus has partnered with Cambium Networks to design the largest 60 GHz cnWave network of its kind in the world having previously worked together on a successful scheme in Dalton Piercy, Hartlepool.