£69m investment into Scottish broadband roll-out labelled 'disappointing'
The £69m being invested by the Government into the roll out of broadband in Scotland has been labelled as ‘disappointing’ by the Cabinet Secretary for Infrastructure and Capital Investment, Alex Neil.
In reaction to the announcement by the Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport that England would receive £295m to provide everyone across the UK with broadband speeds of at least 2Mbps, while Scotland would receive £69m, Alex Neil said: “I am disappointed with the allocation from the UK Government towards the Scottish Government’s ambition for roll out of next generation broadband across the whole of Scotland.
“Whilst today’s funding will contribute in some measure to fulfilment of our broadband ambition, we will play our own part through direct investment of Scottish Government funding, as well as exploring alternative financing models. We expect these funds to leverage a significant amount of private sector investment to improve broadband coverage in Scotland. Further announcements and decisions will be considered as part of our ongoing spending review.
“However, this announcement from the UK Government has fallen short of the expectations of the Scottish economy to the overall costs of broadband rollout in the remote and rural parts of Scotland. For instance the cost to deliver next generation broadband across the Highlands and Islands alone has been estimated at up to £300 million, therefore we do not regard the UK Government’s allocation as a realistic contribution to meet Scotland’s broadband requirements.
“The Scottish Government believes that people across Scotland should have the same access to the benefits of high speed connection and fair access to the digital revolution. That investment will be good for jobs and economic growth and why we will be introducing a Next Generation Digital Fund amongst other measures.
“Despite today’s announcement by the UK Government, there would still appear to be money remaining from their £530m broadband fund which was set aside from the TV licence fee. I will be writing to Mr Hunt today to clarify this point, with a view to securing a better deal for Scotland.”
The investment will be made through a £530m government fund to develop the broadband infrastructure with money having also been spent on updating Northern Ireland and Wales, as well as some English counties already.
Last week, a report by Ofcom found that despite an initiative being announced by the Scottish Government to widen the availability of broadband to all, the take-up had 'flatlined'.