MANY of your readers will be surprised at the comments ascribed to Coun Garry Perkins with regard to the delay in progress with the wifi project. According to Coun Perkins the Highworth roll out was a pilot and not part of the delivery. That view is not supported by any fact whatsoever. In the SBC press release it was made clear that Highworth was the first phase of the project with completion scheduled in early December 2009. Highworth was chosen as a suitable location by Mr Hunt and he is on record as claiming that in starting there he has been able to iron out many obstacles which will make the rest of the roll out run more smoothly (SA, March 9, 2010).

It is also the case that the Cabinet Paper setting out the wifi deal specifically referred to Highworth as being the first operating phase of a roll out which was intended to be completed by the end of November 2009, with the whole borough being covered by the end of April 2010. It was against this plan that Coun Bluh agreed to lend Digital City £450k of tax payers’ money.

Coun Perkins suggests that council bureaucracy is a reason for some delay in progressing matters and cites the structure as being one obstacle to speedy resolution of issues. This is completely at variance with the nature of the deal made and agreed by Cabinet. In October 2009, Cabinet delegated powers to a senior council director enabling that individual to grant licences to install equipment on all suitable council owned property across the borough.

In March of this year and despite Digital City having failed to meet a number of objective criteria, SBC Cabinet approved the release of a further £250k bringing the total amount loaned up to £400k which was only £50k short of the total amount to be loaned by the council for Digital City to provide total borough-wide coverage. In the seven months since the release of the money there has been no significant works started in the town centre and no indication as to when the remainder of the borough will receive wifi access.

Mr Hunt now suggests that the town could be completed by the end of next year - but one wonders how much confidence can be placed in such a pronouncement and whether that ‘optimistic hope’ refers only to the town centre? If it does then one is entitled to ask what is happening with the rest of the borough and will Digital City be asking SBC for more money?

In the interim a number of claims have been made with regard to the level of external commercial interest from other councils, indeed Mr Hunt is on record as stating that some 18 councils are already involved in discussions. The reality as ever is that hype and spin are the stock in trade of many serial entrepreneurs and in this respect perhaps Mr Hunt places too much faith in a general enquiry, in much the same way as he speaks of ‘expressions of interest’ as if they were contracted customers. I wonder just how many of the 18 councils would be happy to associate themselves with a company and council which has so singularly failed to deliver on time.

Perhaps Coun Perkins could let us know whether or not a risk assessment of the forward business plan has been carried out in light of the knowledge gained by the failures in Highworth and if so when was it conducted and what were the conclusions.

DES MORGAN Caraway Drive Swindon