Chichester District Council
Issue

Issue - meetings

Gigabit West Sussex for Districts and Boroughs

Meeting: 05/09/2017 - Cabinet (Item 406)

406 Gigabit West Sussex for Districts and Boroughs pdf icon PDF 78 KB

The Cabinet is requested to consider the agenda report and to make the following resolution that:

 

1)          Chichester District Council commits in principle to the sites listed in paragraph 6.1 to a 20 year lease of new dark fibre infrastructure as part of a contract between West Sussex County Council and the selected supplier, subject to central government gap funding, lease terms and on a cost neutral basis.

2)          The Head of Commercial Services be delegated consideration of which option to accept in relation to the CCTV contract award on the basis that whatever option is selected will also be cost neutral.

3)          The Council informs the Gigabit West Sussex project team of sites, including parish councils, outside the Capita WAN which could be included in the procurement.

Additional documents:

Decision:

RESOLVED

 

(1)  That it be approved that Chichester District Council commits in principle to the sites listed in para 3.1 of the agenda report to a 20-year lease of new dark fibre infrastructure as part of a contract between West Sussex County Council and the selected supplier, subject to central government gap funding, lease terms and on a cost neutral basis.

 

(2)  That consideration of which option to accept in relation to the CCTV contract award on the basis that whatever option is selected will also be cost neutral be delegated to the Head of Commercial Services.

 

(3)  That Chichester District Council do inform the Gigabit West Sussex project team of sites, including parish councils, outside the Capita WAN which could be included in the procurement.

Minutes:

The Cabinet received and considered the agenda report and its appendix (copies attached to the official minutes).

 

The report was presented by Mr Wilding.

 

Mrs Dodsworth was in attendance for this item.

 

At the end of his introduction Mr Wilding summarised a number of questions he had received from members about the Gigabit project and the answers he had given them. These related to whether any of the parishes would benefit (unlikely in the case of rural parishes), what would happen if CDC relocated from East Pallant House, the exit strategy from a 20-year scheme, the adequacy of continuing with the existing WAN contract with West Sussex County Council (WSCC) (Mrs Shepherd said that WSCC would oversee the migration of WAN into the new Gigabit contract) and whether the CCTV system might migrate to the Gigabit technology (Mr Over advised that this was a matter for Sussex Police which managed CCTV). 

 

Mrs Dodsworth and Mr Dignum explained that when the project was put out to tender, suppliers would be expected to stipulate a route which would take into account the needs of the business community in Chichester city and the business parks and the aim was to encourage as many businesses as possible to join and maximise the economic opportunity presented by the project and for the infrastructure to be installed as close as possible to the Gigabit dark fibre route. 

 

Mrs Dodsworth, Mrs Shepherd and Mr Dignum responded to Cabinet members’ questions and among the points made were that (a) the government had a priority four-year programme to roll out the internet and that in due course rural parishes and towns such as Selsey could expect to benefit from this scheme; (b) the project would not be costing CDC any significant sums of money; (c) the use of existing dark fibre spare capacity (footnote on page 75 of the agenda) rather than laying a new ultra-fast framework was sensibly making use of an otherwise wasted resource and was a starting point for the widespread provision of quality internet access for all.        

 

The Cabinet noted that in the second line of para 2.1 of the agenda report, ‘paragraph 6.1’ should in fact read ‘paragraph 3.1’.

 

Decision

 

The Cabinet voted unanimously on a show of hands in favour of making the resolutions set out below.

 

RESOLVED

 

(1)  That it be approved that Chichester District Council commits in principle to the sites listed in para 3.1 of the agenda report to a 20-year lease of new dark fibre infrastructure as part of a contract between West Sussex County Council and the selected supplier, subject to central government gap funding, lease terms and on a cost neutral basis.

 

(2)  That consideration of which option to accept in relation to the CCTV contract award on the basis that whatever option is selected will also be cost neutral be delegated to the Head of Commercial Services.

 

(3)  That Chichester District Council do inform the Gigabit West Sussex project team of sites, including parish councils, outside  ...  view the full minutes text for item 406


 

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