Digital Connectivity Only Growth Deal Project that Can Transform Region’s Future Economy

Digital connectivity should be the North Wales Growth Deal’s top priority, according to one of the region’s foremost business forums.

While welcoming the recent investment, speaking for DBF (Deeside Business Forum), Chair Askar Sheibani advises that the digital project should receive as much of the £240m investment as possible.

The UK and Welsh Governments have already agreed £120m each for the North Wales Growth Deal, to be spent on various projects across the six counties – subject to rigorous scrutiny of the relevant plans.

Mr Sheibani, also CEO of Comtek Network Systems, Sorrento Networks and chairman and founder of the UK Fibre Connectivity Forum, said:

“The growth deal as it stands has only £34m allocated to developing digital connectivity – this is woefully inadequate. If we are serious about transforming North Wales’s future economy then at least £120m should be allocated to the region’s digital infrastructure.

“High quality, affordable broadband is essential for businesses to be able to compete and to grow. Investing in the infrastructure needed to bring fibre to industrial parks is not commercially viable for telecommunication infrastructure providers, so we need public sector support.

There is no higher priority for investment than boosting digital connectivity.”

Currently North Wales is one of the worst regions in the UK for digital connectivity.

Businesses based in the area who want to compete on a national and international level can be hampered by bills of around £700 per month for a 100 Meg lease line fibre-based broadband.

DBF believes that high quality, affordable ultrafast broadband is a business essential that is key to the area’s future success.

DBF has been campaigning to improve digital connectivity in North Wales for some years, organising several well-attended conferences on the subject.

February 2018’s conference, ‘Full Fibre Digital Connectivity for North Wales’, was the first UK-based fibre connectivity conference organised exclusively to advance the knowledge of attendees on the socio-economic benefits of full fibre broadband in North Wales.

Mr Sheibani added: “If we want the North Wales economy to grow and flourish we need to invest and focus in creating highly skilled and higher paid jobs.  Full Fibre Digital infrastructure will help to achieve this.

“The North Wales Digital Connectivity Project is the only one which guarantees to transform North Wales’s fortunes in under four years – if digital funding was supported by a figure of at least £120m.

“We have a historic opportunity now to be bold, decisive and aspirational in aiming to make North Wales the most digitally connected and advanced place in the UK.”