THERE is expected to be high turnout at a planning committee meeting tonight when councillors decide whether to grant planning permission for five masts required for the wireless broadband rollout.

UKB Networks have submitted the applications for the masts but there has been widespread opposition from North Swindon residents to the scheme.

Swindon Borough Council went into partnership with the company aiming to bring superfast broadband to areas currently without, including rural parts of the borough and north of the town.

Around £2million in public money has been made available for UKB but while many living in rural areas are for it, a lot of residents believe it is a waste of money and is preventing fibre cables being installed.

The masts are needed for the scheme so should they be rejected at the planning stage it would be a serious stumbling block, although UKB has said it will continue to find a solution.

North Swindon MP Justin Tomlinson is also against the scheme and says the council needs to pull out of the arrangement.

He said: “There are several reasons why this scheme is wrong and will undoubtedly fail; something which I have raised with Swindon Borough Council countless times over the past 9 months.

“However tonight is purely about rejecting the inappropriate locations of the 50 foot masts. Should this scheme proceed; regardless of the will of residents, councillors and myself; then the masts need to move to more appropriate locations.

“There is one main reason to refuse this prior approval. That is that the masts are inappropriately sited owing to the size and scale of the masts, the proximity of both local schools and local children’s play areas, as well as the removal of vital green and open space.”

Will Harnden, the chief marketing officer of UKB, has said there is demand and the service will bring at least 24mbps for every user.

He said: “We are bringing to Swindon connectivity and broadband to the 20,000 households that currently don’t have it from other suppliers.

“After the installation of our kit around the first half of next year, customers will be able to get broadband and Netflix, iplayer, and all the things they don’t get today in the villages and North Swindon.

“Fibre optic requires digging up streets which takes months and months whereas we are aiming to be up in quarter two of 2016, so we are talking six months as opposed to a year.”