GoFibre pushes its £105m Project Gigabit build into six more North East villages
Work is now underway in St Fergus, Inchmarlo, Collieston and three more Aberdeenshire villages — bringing GoFibre's £105m subsidised build to more rural doors.
Edinburgh-based altnet GoFibre has given its latest update on the £105 million Project Gigabit contract for North East Scotland, and the build is now pushing into six more communities: St Fergus, Inchmarlo, Kincardine O’Neil, Collieston and Newburgh in Aberdeenshire, plus Kingswells on the edge of Aberdeen. Around 1,000 homes and businesses across these areas are set to get full fibre for the first time.
The contract was awarded in July 2025, funded by the UK Government and procured and delivered by the Scottish Government, targeting around 63,000 hard-to-reach premises (“at least” 100,000 once GoFibre’s own commercial build alongside it is counted). It sits under Project Gigabit — BDUK’s latest figures show 1.46 million premises upgraded under the public gigabit programmes. Street works began in February 2026, and the first connections have already gone live in Edzell, Inverbervie, Longforgan, Montrose, Dunkeld, Bankfoot, Newtonhill, Portlethen, Alyth and Coupar Angus.
“It’s exciting to see our North East Scotland network build expanding into more towns and villages in new parts of Aberdeenshire,” said Andy Hepburn, COO of GoFibre, pointing to the company’s social impact work and Scotland-based customer service team alongside the engineering effort.
The bigger GoFibre picture
GoFibre is one of the more active rural altnets in Scotland. It is backed by £289 million in private funding from Gresham House, Hamburg Commercial Bank and the Scottish National Investment Bank, and says it now covers 135,000 premises across more than 30 local areas in rural Scotland and Northern England. It holds £145 million of Project Gigabit contracts in total, including the smaller £26.2m Scottish Borders and East Lothian lot.
The company aims for a UK footprint of 250,000 premises by around mid-2028 and had around 15,000 customers as of June 2025 — figures that arrived days after the new telecoms minister’s first speech recommitted the government to 99% gigabit coverage by 2032. New customers pay from £22.50 a month for 150Mbps (symmetric) on a 24-month term, rising to £34.50 for the top 1Gbps tier, with £200 of switching credit for those stuck in existing contracts.
The numbers also show how tough the economics are: GoFibre’s most recent annual results, to the end of 2025, showed revenue rising to £5.63m (from £2.72m in 2024) but an operating loss of £9.24m — the familiar altnet pattern of fast growth funded by heavy upfront build costs.
What it means for rural readers
If you live in rural Aberdeenshire, Angus or Moray, this contract is the one that matters — these are the premises the commercial builders walked past. GoFibre’s Project Gigabit build is filling the gaps between towns it already serves, so properties near its existing network in Stonehaven, Laurencekirk or Forfar are worth checking. Registering interest on the provider’s site puts you in line to be connected when the street works reach your village. The story also featured in our weekly roundup.
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