Another week, another announcement of 'jam soon' from Swindon's pathetic wi-fi dalliance.
Yeah, usual thing 'money will come within days', or 'maybe soon', big shiny investor we won't name, jam tomorrow, JAM TOMORROW!
Swindon Centric Says ; Huge hat-tip to the Swindon Advertiser for showing it's respect for this 'news' by burying it on page 25 of today's edition, exactly where it deserves to be!
Swindon Borough Council's dalliance with Digital City and it's promises the morning after have, for a 3rd time, made the 'Rotten Boroughs' column of Private Eye magazine.
This is on top of last week's news that the wi-fi had won an award. Strangely, when the Adver's Adam Kula (a massive tip of the hat to him, as he's hit the ground running in terms of reporting the town's politics) tried to contact the government magazine that gave the award, the person responsible was said to be climbing a mountain in Nepal.
Could that be the same mountain that everyone's favourite former CEO of Digital City is also climbing?
Swindon Centric Says ; Three strikes and you're out, wind up Digital City now and lets crack on with the daylight-filled investigation of how, what, why and when.
Satirical magazine Private Eye has covered the Wi-Failed debacle again in it's Rotten Boroughs column in the latest issue.
Regular readers will know that Private Eye also picked up on the scheme in a previous occasion last year.
Swindon Centric Says ; Meanwhile, the link to the Technology Strategy Board's press release about the awarding of a grant to Digital City still returns an error message, appears they're keeping their position, and their money, to themselves?
Chloroform, oh, I'm sure some wish they were sleeping through this mess.
A simple letter to West Lothian Council has revealed that they received no contact from any of the 'Scrutinising Four' as I like to now call them.
This follows the suggestion by many of those involved in Digital City that the reason the business hasn't been doing well (or okay, or fine, or adequate) is because people have been taking about it.
Swindon Centric Says ; A transparent, responsive, professional local authority, welcome to West Lothian, you are now leaving the Borough of Swindon.
This just remembered...
One of those that decided to wrongly name names about the stalling of the Digital City wi-fi was everyone's favourite North Swindon MP, on the Graham Mack BBC Wiltshire Breakfast Show and Swindon Centric, along with others has the download.
The clock for apologising continues to tick...
Like a bad cheap paper-back, the wi-fi struggles on, sweaty, out of breath and on the verge of collapsing the town's dignity.
Swindon-based quango (that's a government body, with public money, but kept at arms length and told to get on with it) Technology Strategy Board awarded the Swindon Signal project (the failing business that's been given nearly half a million pounds of Swindon taxpayer's money, with nothing to show for it) £331,000 in total.
For the full details, click here.
Swindon Centric Says ; Will TSB withdraw their funding after realising the dog's breakfast of a situation Digital City/Signal/Aqovia are in?
This just in...
Currently the link to the TSB press release (from November, so this is old but certainly not out of date news) isn't working. Are they reconsidering the award of the funding?
For a wi-fi company that's meant to be "innovative", the vanishing of your website doesn't inspire confidence in any potential investors.
But that's exactly what's happened with Swindon resident's-funded Digital City (they have £450,000 of our money), who's website vanished into the clear-blue sky yesterday.
Swindon Centric Says ; A valentine's Day business massacre? Everyone'll be wearing red, so it wouldn't show, got to look at the tiny positives.
Online, on the airwaves, and now in print the calls for an end to the Digital City era have been made.
Read Des Morgan's view and analysis of this here.
Swindon Centric Says : Save our Swindon, our money, our name and our reputation, wind up Digital City now.
If the council leader can invoke the Swindon coat of arms and motto, so can any of us.
A review of what the latest level of bizzare activity at Digital City means for Swindon has come to the ultimate conclusion.
Read Geoff Reid's post here.
Swindon Centric Says ; If those involved aren't willing to step-down then it requires that residents step-up and highlight the embarrassment, waste and hostility this project has caused Swindon. This town is ours, those who work, live and grow-up here.
This project is causing serious and deep damage to our town, those involved have a decision to make, see it through the eyes of the people of Swindon and decide.
Health and industry, so our motto is... but is this industrial project about as healthy as a dead parrot?
Like a Saw film sequel, it just gets worse...
Avidity Consulting, the company that owns shares in Digital City (the company we, the residents of Swindon have a stake in) changed it's Director at the end of 2010. Read Geoff Reid's post here, it's explained far better than I could.
Swindon Centric Says ; How can you give up shares in a company you're no longer Director of?
A line has to be drawn in the sand, end this fool's errand. It was a bad business investment, it was just bad. For the sake of the town, it needs to end now.
Congratulations to Graham Mack (BBC Wiltshire) for holding Rikki Hunt to account (click on the first link with the title 'Ricki Hunt talks about Swindon's wifi' for the full interview) for the quagmire that is Digital City.
Swindon Centric Says : A hat tip to Graham Mack. With the reinvigorated efforts from the Swindon Advertiser and now the BBC, it would appear those based on the hill have cleaned off the field-glasses and are peering once again down towards the Civic Offices, well done chaps.
October, ahh, the month of autumn, golden days with crisp frosts, crunchy leaves and the ancient festival of Halloween.
Do you remember last October?
If not, you should. It was the last month that Digital City (the business that has £450,000 of public money from Swindon Borough Council, as a loan) repaid anything to Swindon Borough Council.
Swindon Centric Says ; But not to worry, we've been assured a private investor is waiting in the wings to buy out/in Digital City and it's conditional on us getting our money back, as our-councillor-on-the-board has said.
Hold on though, wasn't this the same councillor who said the money was being paid back?
Swindon Centric's probably just light-headed from the private investor promise, Lord Ashcroft-backed investor maybe? Sounds super!
That's pretty much it really.
After many weeks of promises of "an announcement soon", the straw that broke the camel's back appears to be a combination of Geoff Reid's words on Talk Swindon and (suspected) decision on the running of a story with-or-without comment by the Swindon Advertiser. They did comment.
Swindon Centric Says ; There's no money left, new investors are sought for what Councillor Perkins (who's coming across more and more like the Walker character from Dad's Army) still insists on calling "innovative" (it's not, it's wireless internet, it's been around since 1999).
Two questions now need to be asked :
What's our money been spent on?
and
Is the fundamental part of the council's checks and balances, the scrutiny process (that decided this investment was sound) unfit for purpose?
plus
How rotten are Swindon Borough Council's processes if this has been allowed to happen?
and one more for luck
Will the Swindon Borough Council councillors who openly criticised Chris Watts, Des Morgan and Councillor Steve Wakefield now apologise as this admission now vindicates their concerns?
The business idea itself was just bad, plain and simple. It was a bad investment idea.
A 'where-aren't-we-now' story this week by the Swindon Advertiser's Charley Morgan did well to keep the public's attention on the collapsing council-backed project.
One comment by everyone's favourite 'Your councillor on the wi-fi company's board', Garry Perkins is very telling.
The quote is, "And we hope a large part of the town will be completed by this time next year."
When Rikki Hunt (CEO of Digital City, the company meant to be doing the work) appeared on Graham Mack's Swindon Breakfast Show on BBC Wiltshire at the start of October, this exchange occurred...
Graham Mack : "So it'll be finished this time next year?"
Rikki Hunt : "Yeah".
Swindon Centric Says : Who's right? Who's wrong? Who knows?!!!!
PS - If you're having a Christmas Party this weekend, Swindon Centric wishes you a great time, and hopes you can leave work worries at the door.
If you follow to it's logical conclusion the fact that Digital City were given rent-free offices in the David Murray John building because it doesn't have lift access and therefore wouldn't be let-able to any private company tenant, this could be a huge boon for some in this era of Big Society. According to this report from the Advertiser, Labour claim £3,000 could be saved by Digital City vacating their grace and favour office.
Swindon Centric Says ; So if you're a charity, volunteer organisation or quango who are in need of premises in these lean times, contact Swindon Borough Council and as long as you sit in that grey area on a venn diagram, you could be living rent free!
Digital City (the council funded business that's missed a platter of deadlines for giving Swindon free wi-fi) has bid to install CCTV cameras in Broadgreen.
Swindon Centric Says ; Shouldn't they be concentrating on fulfilling their initial commitments than making more?
This scheme has all the shades of The Simpson's Monorail episode.
The open secret about the commercial success of Digital City's venture (using £450,000 of council money) has been confirmed by this article.
There are no paying customers for the business, those people in Highworth are only using the free one at present. The article gives the indication that Digital City haven't chosen to launch the pay service because of the problems encountered in Highworth (the hills and the lack of lamposts)
Swindon Centric Says ; "The name's Lanley, Lyle Lanley and I come before you good people today with an idea..."If Leonard Nimoy doesn't turn up soon, we'll not be happy.
The rebranding of the New Swindon Company into Forward Swindon has also seen other changes with a new chief executive, who seems a tad shy of local media (well, the Swindon Advertiser, who seems sore that she didn't return their phone calls), but some interesting information can be gleaned from her coverage in the Financial Times.
The FT article and that of the Swindon Advertiser mainly just talks about the tax break and marketing opportunities that Forward Swindon plan to make of Swindon. Not much talk about bricks and mortar rebuilding work.
Swindon Centric Says ; As Komadori has pointed out, the effectiveness of this new appointment is questionable, given previous experience. Then again, quangos are pretty unanswerable to anyone, but surely the best hope for an organisation charged with helping to rebuild the town centre is to staff it with architects, town planners and local stakeholders who actually have local knowledge, use the town centre and know what's needed to make it functional, relevant and attractive.
If this piece of news (specifically the comment under the story) is to be believed, everyone's favourite wi-fi businessman may soon have a hand in the town centre regeneration. Then again, since the loan to Digital City started to roll after being signed off on a note earmarking the money for small business/town centre regeneration , thank god for the small mercy that the town centre is due to be the second place to get the wi-fi. After Highworth, which still isn't finished...
The SwindonWeb profile of Rikki Hunt makes interesting reading, especially in light of the setting up of Digital City and the wi-fi scheme late last year.
In his own words "Success is based on the strength of your integrity. Do what you say you will."
Swindon Centric Says ; According to his own words then, we have nothing to worry about. Convinced?
P.S. The addition of an advert for Digital City's 'Signal' at the very bottom of that page could be a metaphor for the marketing of the wi-fi scheme by Digital City : small, hidden and keeping as low a profile as possible.
If someone can photoshop Tony Blair's head for that of the Swindon Borough Council leader, this cover would be spot on for our town.
The appearance of Swindon's wi-fi deal in the Rotten Borough Column of Private Eye has been acknowledged by many, but unsurprisingly, has entirely escaped the pages of the Swindon Advertiser.
It might be because the Private Eye story summarises the main points of the deal with more facts in one story than the Adver have included in the many puffy column-inches they've written since November last year.
Swindon Centric is hoping Private Eye will be keeping tabs on how the wi-fi ends and reports accordingly.
Swindon Centric Says ; With £400,000 of the £450,000 now taken by Digital City, where's our money gone and where's our wi-fi?
Swindon Centric isn't able to attend tonight's cabinet meeting (6.15pm at the Civic Offices), but would urge anyone that does and wishes to ask questions to save them for the official cabinet meeting.
The reason? If I asked questions to my councillors, I'd rather it's during the actual cabinet meeting not the watery 'meet and greet' beforehand, so that something resembling my concerns and a suitable response ends up on the public record.
Swindon Centric Says ; If anyone who reads this does go, can they please ask exactly where, out of the council finances, the money came from for the wi-fi grant? The answer I received, was a bit of a double-negative.
