North Wales Assembly Member Mark Isherwood AM has again challenged the Minister for Skills and Science over broadband access and FibreSpeed North Wales, after she failed to respond to his questions regarding both matters during last week’s Welsh Conservative Debate on Digital Exclusion
Mr Isherwood raised the issue in the Assembly Chamber this week following the Minister’s Statement on Broadband.
He said:
“You state that, given that the Superfast Cymru contract will end next year, you’ve already embarked on the preparatory work necessary to establish a successor broadband investment project. Obviously, Superfast Cymru is targeted at 96 percent of premises. I referred last week in the Chamber, and I think in Committee, to the UK Government’s £10 million Innovation Fund Pilot, which ran throughout 2015, looking at their implementation for the final 5 per cent of premises in England. That reported its findings in February. Was Wales included in that or not, and if not, will you be basing your roll-out on that, or if not, why are we two years behind England?
“Finally, last week, I asked you questions in the debate to which you’ve already referred regarding FibreSpeed North Wales. I wonder if you could answer how many millions of public money was spent on a Welsh Government project, resulting from a Welsh Government tender, which went horribly wrong, which went nowhere, and why FibreSpeed were placed in that position.”
The Minister told Mr Isherwood to email her regarding FibreSpeed North Wales and with regards his first question stated:
“In terms of whether we’re taking the innovation research into account, the answer is ‘Yes, we are’, but it’s not specific to Wales. The new final stages of superfast roll-out, will be very much on a premises-by-premises basis, because we’ve now got down to so few numbers that we can address individual problems. I’m afraid it will come down to that in some areas of Wales. We’ve got properties that have an individual problem and they can’t be solved with the roll-out of a cabinet or a fibre network in that way.”
Mr Isherwood added: “All the more reason for Wales’ preparatory work to have happened long ago, as in England.”