Superfast broadband bid has descended into ‘fiasco’

GIGAPLUS Argyll’s plan to bring to superfast broadband to Luing has descended into a ‘fiasco’, the island’s community council heard last week.

BT is contracted to provide superfast broadband to 95 per cent of the UK, leaving the remotest five per cent uncovered. A community-funded and -run broadband service on Mull called GigaMull joined with private provider AB Internet to form GigaPlus Argyll.

It plans to bring a ‘carrier class network’ of masts and dishes, transmitting wireless superfast broadband at a minimum speed of 24MB/S, to 1,400 homes and businesses in rural postcodes, including west Mull, Iona, Lismore, Colonsay, Oronsay, Jura, the Craignish peninsula and Rinns of Islay, and Luing.

The Scottish Government initiative Community Broadband Scotland (CBS) funded £988 towards the roll- out of the network, which will be community- owned with AB Internet deriving the income. The GigaPlus Argyll website hoped ‘the first installation will be live early in 2017’.

AB Internet applied to build an 11m unmanned, lightweight, lattice telecommunications tower near Achafolla Cottage, Toberonochy, and, in July, a second tower 30.5m (100ft) high at Cnoc Dhomnhuill, Cullipool, which drew 31 objections – including from Luing Community Council (LCC). It felt ‘unable to represent island opinion’ until CBS’s consultation was complete, it argued, and the 100ft tower was ‘a much greater size than we understood from previous information’.

LCC convener Fiona Rogers told Cullipool Hall on Tuesday November 29 that, as a result of a project meeting and many objections to the Cullipool mast, ‘AB Internet decided to withdraw its application’, and since then it has been subjected to ‘ vitriolic’, ‘unjustified criticism’.

Ms Rogers said: ‘ We have tried to reflect the island’s interests, not GigaPlus’s. People are not dissatisfied with the service they are already getting. In my view, a cosmetic exercise was carried out to show this is what we wanted.’

Councillor Julie McKenzie said GigaPlus Argyll is ‘going to proceed without Luing. Luing is the only community council in Scotland that has rejected it. Is it right for those who want GigaPlus to be disadvantaged by those who don’t?’ Ms Rogers countered: ‘Is that called the tyranny of the minority?’

Community councillor Nicky Archibald added: ‘This whole thing has become a fiasco. We are an island well serviced by internet – better than other islands. We are presented with an option that may or may not [ bring] benefit. So where do we sit? We are told this may not be totally inclusive. It may be a lesser service. On top of that, we are having a 30m high mast. It will not give everyone the benefit they expect. We are hearing the service levels are not very good. The message from the survey is we want better service, but we want the devil we know, not the devil we don’t. We went to the nth degree to get this done, and all we have had is criticism. It is a joke.’

Moray Finch, general manager of Mull and Iona Community Trust, told The Oban Times: ‘We are unable to proceed with implementation on Luing. Luing remains part of the GigaPlus Argyll project. We have not withdrawn the planning application for the mast at Achafolla. GigaPlus Argyll will seek alternative locations for masts to bypass Luing. This will ensure the other communities are not adversely affected.

‘Our concern is that there are residents on Luing who will be denied a service that they would wish to take with no prospect of an alternative.

‘It appears to us Luing Community Council has been negative about the GigaPlus Argyll project from the start.’