South Yorkshire Councils to probe £90m Digital Region project

The South Yorkshire Council set out with the Digital Region project with huge goals and high hopes. However, the project isn’t panning out as well as many had hoped and instead, it’s even losing money. One main problem is that most Internet service providers haven’t shown much interest in the project, such as Sky and TalkTalk.

Digital Region is the flagship scheme that was set up so that almost all homes and business establishments in South Yorkshire would be able to have access to next-generation broadband services. A lot of the funding went into building the networks for the project that might end up getting shut down–if things don’t turn up in the next couple of months. For 2010 to 2011, the project even reported a loss of £9.2 million.

In order to keep the project going, regional development agency Yorkshire Forward was made to pledge an additional £4 million from public funds.

Yorkshire Forward chief executive Thea Stein stated: “The decision was made with the local authorities that Digital Region might need more money. Clearly the discussion has been had with central Government, as all Yorkshire Forward’s funding ultimately comes through them. We are committed to seeing Digital Region flourish, but like all start-up businesses it needs support. It’s important to state this is a guarantee – the hope is they will not need to draw it down.”

Now an investigation is going to be conducted into why there is so little interested in the project. On behalf of the authorities, the Rotherham Council has already initiated an inquiry. Because of commercial sensitivity, the council will be unable to announce how many people had already signed up for the services.

Barnsley Council leader Steve Houghton admitted that the project had not “been as effective as we hoped.” He added that the prob was being carried out to “see what the pressures and issues are and to see if we can make sure we deliver the outcomes we are looking for.”

Maureen Donnelly, chair of Digital Region, revealed that the first phase of the Digital Region project was already “more or less” completed, with eighty percent of areas in South Yorkshire already having access to faster speeds. She stated: “Every year since Digital Region was set up, we review our business plan and our forecast. very year as part of that we look at our plans for the following year and there is always an option to stop or not. That is a decision we ask all of our shareholders to look at, it is always one of the options among many.”