Has anyone seen the project below discussed or agreed on by district councillors – or is it yet another example of the EDDC CEO Mark Williams wagging the body of the councillor dog?
Is our multi-partner STRATA IT company behind this decision? Do they even know about it? Who knows – certainly not us!
And how does it affect EDDC’s relocation plans which lay great stress on broadband connectivity as the main way in which residents will access council services?
At last night’s EDDC Cabinet meeting in response to questions from the public asking why EDDC had not committed match funding to the Connecting Devon & Somerset (CDS) Phase 2 programme run by Devon & Somerset County Councils, a statement was read out which appears to that EDDC plans to withdraw from the CDS Phase 2 programme – at the moment the only council in Devon and Somerset that is doing this.
EDDC apparently plan to run their own project to provide predominantly Fibre To The Home broadband (FTTH) across all of the rural EDDC area that is not covered by the existing Phase 1 hcontract with BT.
Anyone who knows the saga of our ( still pending) Draft Local Plan – around seven years in discussion is allowed to groan at this point!
A letter sent by Mark Williams to BDUK, (the government body responsible for UK broadband subsidies), on November 24, appears to confirm this.
EDDC is hoping to tap some of the additional £10M that was announced in the Chancellors Autumn Statement to fund the project, but it remains to be seen how much of this money may come EDDC’s way since every other District and County in the South West can be expected to claim portions of this funding and when divided up, so EDDC’s allocation could be relatively small.
At this stage the statement should not be regarded as anything more than an “Expression of Interest” since a great deal of work will have to be done by EDDC before rural residents could expect to see the fruits of this initiative.
In the meantine, CDS, funded with up to £45.5M for Phase 2 are continuing in their third attempt to find Phase 2 suppliers for 95% coverage and are holding a “supplier day” which over 20 interested companies will attend on December 4 (see post on this by Ian Liddell-Grainger below) CDS say they intend to sign contracts with suppliers in June 2016.
It is likely that any 100% coverage programme that EDDC sets up will take significantly longer than this to put in place.
The full statement as read by Cllr Ian Thomas at last night’s EDDC Cabinet meeting:
‘The questions rightly identified the fact that up till now the matter of Superfast Broadband roll out had fallen within the remit of Connecting Devon & Somerset (CDS) joint venture set up by the County Councils) and their contractual arrangements with BT. EDDC had chosen not to be a contractual party to the matter because of the excessive secrecy surrounding the original contracts.
The issue of agreeing an ‘in principle contribution’ to the phase 2 roll out or making a ‘commitment’ was not just a matter of semantics. Without an open approach to discussions and an ability to share that information with communities, it would be irresponsible to commit funding – or in effect, give it away.
EDDC was committed to pursuing the matter on behalf of its communities and recently on 24 November, the Chief Executive wrote in the following terms to the Commercial Lead of Broadband Delivery UK:
“We are writing to confirm our intention to apply for support from the South West Fund for a project to provide superfast broadband to the remaining 10% of premises in East Devon District not otherwise covered by the CD&S/BT Phase 1 buildout.
We have been in discussion with potential suppliers for the past year on a possible co-investment arrangement whereby public and private funds would be applied to the construction of a predominantly FTTH network, and we find their proposals appealing and well worth supporting, both financially by way of co-investment by EDDC, and in ‘soft’ terms.
In the absence of an application form, we intend to address the various points raised in the guidelines by way of a paper to be submitted to EDDC Cabinet and to BDUK. In the meantime, we can confirm the Council’s intention to comply with mandatory criteria points 1-5 and priority criteria points 6-9, and to satisfy information requests a-d.
We look forward to working with BDUK on the successful initiation, funding approval and execution of this important and worthwhile project.”
A reply is awaited in order to commence the stage of preparing a detailed report. We also understand that CD&S are in discussions to try to ensure the delivery of their original objectives.’
In your dreams!
East Devon Watch 