On Tuesday we saw a victory for local democracy as Swindon Borough Council’s planning committee listened to arguments put forward by myself, local councillors and members of the public, before deciding to throw out five of the masts put forward by UK Broadband as part of their unwanted plans to roll-out wireless super-fast broadband.
As things currently stand, Swindon Borough Council has signed a deal with UKB Networks to provide superfast broadband for 20,000 homes which are currently without the service. A total of 67,000 homes across Swindon already have access to the service – but take up is negligible. As many people know, I have been against this project from its conception. Partly as a local Taw Hill resident myself who does not want to settle for the outdated 4G service that UKBN offers. But also as the representative for my fellow local residents who have campaigned tirelessly for fibre broadband.
We are an expanding town that continues to attract local investors who create jobs and families who look to settle down. And residents deserve and expect the fastest and most up-to-date technology (which can be constantly upgraded to keep up with rapidly evolving innovations) when it comes to broadband.
Residents therefore deserve nothing less than fibre.
The rural areas of our borough (of which I represent a significant amount of too) also deserve fibre. Unfortunately, the offer currently on the table from UKBN will not deliver the latest broadband service. And it will certainly not offer anything like the download speeds that can be expected with fibre.
Furthermore, it does not come as part of TV and telephone packages, which is standard in the market today. Quite frankly, it is out-dated, expensive and unwanted. I have had countless meetings with Government ministers and representatives from BT and Virgin over the past few months in a bid to resolve the problems.
And there is an alternative.
BT and Virgin are ready to roll out fibre commercially to the Northern Sector – only without UKBN. And this leaves all of the Government subsidy to deliver fibre to our rural areas. So I sympathise with Swindon Borough Council, and especially the leader, Cllr David Renard, who deserves credit for seeking to deliver superfast broadband across Swindon. But I would urge them to reconsider this deal before it is too late.
As a town, let’s walk away from UKBN.
We should invest in fibre for the rural areas and let the commercial broadband sector deal with the Northern Sector, which they are ready and waiting to do. This way everybody wins and as a town we will consistently have access to the latest broadband technology. Finally, I wanted to finish by saying a big thank you to all of the local residents who came together on Tuesday to send a crystal clear message to UKBN and SBC.
That message is quite simple – it is, we want fibre.
