Greater Manchester Local Full Fibre Network (LFFN) Programme

The project delivery and procurement activities for this project were managed and delivered by CJ Founds Associates Ltd in 2019-20. The project was partially public funded by the UK Government’s Local Full Fibre Network (LFFN) challenge fund and consisted of developing a Public Sector Anchor Tenancy network for future digital growth for the Greater Manchester Metropolitan region.

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Key achievements

The project included the design and installation of circa 2,700Km of new full-fibre across the region at Gigabit speed to serve 1,600 public sector sites. The new wholesale Dark Fibre network is expected to trigger significant additional private finance investment of over £200m and is estimated could be worth over £2.1bn to the Greater Manchester economy over the next 15 years.

LFFN was the largest public-sector full-fibre aggregation project ever undertaken in the UK and was subject to the 2015 Public Contracts Regulations comprising of four stages of supplier selection.

The procurement process had to consider the numerous stakeholders in the project, including the nine Contracting Authorities operating under a Framework Agreement with GMCA.

Funding arrangements with the Dept. of Digital, Culture, Media and Sports (DCMS) also had to be considered and incorporated within the supply chain arrangements.

Following the tender exercise, Virgin Media Business was awarded contracts for both the Northern and Southern Arcs of the network. Implementation contracts were signed in March 2020, with delivery to the 1,600 sites planned for completion in 2021.

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This is the largest public sector full fibre aggregation project ever undertaken in the UK. The procurement exercise added significant benefit to the original project objectives including:

  • 50% longer IRU achieved – 30 years secured rather than the anticipated 20 years;
  • 320 additional sites to be connected at no additional cost to GMCA;
  • Extended network reach with 45% residential and business premises passed rather that the 25% originally expected;
  • Social Value benefits worth up to £1.2M to the Greater Manchester region which was particularly of benefit in the Covid-19 response;
  • Reduction in existing WAN costs of 10%.

Can we do the same for you?

Contact the CJ Founds Associates team and see how we can help with your project.