LightSpeed Puts £685k Into 25km Tamworth-Nuneaton Fibre Link

LightSpeed Networks will spend £685,000 on a new 25km fibre link between Tamworth and Nuneaton, extending gigabit-grade connectivity to five industrial estates and business parks across the Midlands. Around 12,000 homes in neighbouring communities stand to benefit from associated works.

The link is the wholesale arm's latest move to squeeze more value from a regional full-fibre (FTTP) network that already passes roughly 360,000 premises across the East of England and the Midlands, spread over 46 locations. It will deliver data speeds of up to 10Gbps to organisations in Atherstone and Wilnecote.

Which business sites get connected?

The new route serves five specific locations:

• South West Atherstone: Carlyon and Netherwood Industrial Estates
• North Atherstone: Abeles Way Business Park
• Wilnecote: Centurion Park and Relay Park

LightSpeed frames the project as a strategy shift in kind rather than in scale: using an established residential network as the base for pushing fibre into business parks where demand for enterprise-grade connectivity already exists. The project builds on approximately £265 million in cumulative group infrastructure investment across the two regions, with the core network now serving 46 towns and communities.

Group CEO Liam Hickey put the commercial logic plainly. "Businesses increasingly depend on reliable connectivity to support their operations, applications and communications," he said. "This investment strengthens our regional infrastructure and creates further opportunities for organisations to access the connectivity and network services they need."

Hickey added: "Our strategy is to make productive use of the network we've built, extending its reach into relevant business locations and supporting growth through both direct customer relationships and specialist partners."

That second sentence is the more telling one. Rather than chasing new build footprints, LightSpeed is monetising existing duct and fibre by extending it short distances into commercial estates — a lower-cost route to revenue that several UK altnets have adopted as wholesale and enterprise markets mature alongside the residential one.

What does the residential side look like?

The business link does not stand alone. Together with related infrastructure investment in Atherstone, Polesworth and Grendon, it forms part of a wider programme worth approximately £4.4 million, supporting gigabit broadband connectivity to around 12,000 residential premises across those communities.

The residential footprint itself continues to grow, though at a measured pace. LightSpeed says its FTTP network should reach approximately 340,000 ready-for-service premises by the end of November 2026. The 360,000 figure the operator quotes for its overall footprint includes some premises that are built but not yet ready for service — a distinction that matters when comparing altnet coverage claims.

Notably, the 340,000 target is roughly the same figure the company stated in September 2026, which suggests the November milestone is a confirmation of existing build plans rather than a fresh acceleration.

The wider context is a UK full-fibre market in which dozens of altnets are racing to pass premises before funding tightens, and in which business-park connectivity has become a favoured second revenue stream. LightSpeed's £685,000 outlay is modest against its £265 million cumulative investment, but it signals where the operator sees the next layer of return: enterprise-grade links layered onto a network originally built for homes.

Tamworth, Nuneaton and the surrounding Warwickshire corridor sit within that logic — industrial estates close enough to existing fibre routes to make extension cheap, and home to businesses that increasingly need symmetric, high-capacity connections. For LightSpeed, the calculation rests on reaching them through both direct sales and specialist partners.

The operator expects the business link and the wider £4.4 million residential programme in Atherstone, Polesworth and Grendon to complete alongside its stated goal of roughly 340,000 ready-for-service premises by the end of November 2026.