Comhairle nan Eilean Siar PRESS RELEASE 13 September 2001 For Use: Immediately

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Telework 2001 Hears Western Isles Call For 'Connected Communities'

Cllr. Norman L. Macdonald, addressing Telework 2001 in Helsinki, has called for a 'Connected Community' in the Western Isles and other remote areas as a means of safeguarding and creating jobs in the Information and Communications Technology sector.

Addressing delegates from throughout Europe at the major ICT conference, Cllr. Macdonald said:
"An opportunity now exists to plug the developing skills gap in the ICT sector and encourage specialist teleworking and outsourcing teams to become established in the Western Isles. If we are successful, this process may be the catalyst required to enable the Western Isles workforce to transform itself into one that can compete in the new 'Digital Economy'.
New clients and business opportunities can be only one click of a mouse away".

Highlighting some of the problems facing teleworkers in the islands such as slow download times and microwave systems which can be adversely affected by bad weather, Cllr. Macdonald outlined a vision of a connected community;
"This community would offer high bandwidth communications to small to medium sized enterprises, public agencies and teleworkers.
The most remote parts of our Islands must have real connectivity to the global market to allow them to compete.
The Council is working with other public sector agencies and private sector partners to take ownership of a project to investigate the potential for an undersea fibre-optic cable linking the Western Isles to the Scottish mainland.
My vision would be realised if we could create new organisational structures which bring major utilities into partnership with local community enterprises in order to accelerate universal access to the benefit of the whole community".

Whilst welcoming the Scottish Executive's strategy for implementing a wide-ranging Broadband strategy for the Highlands and Islands, Cllr. Macdonald stressed sparsely populated and geographically disadvantaged areas in the European Union should have access to the same telecommunications infrastructure that exists in the major cities.

In a plea for a joint public and private approach, Mr. Macdonald said:
"I would go further and demand that this is our right, as essential as the basic utilities of running water and electricity. The current regulatory position in the UK is not meeting the requirements of users in remote areas.
It is clearly not economic for the private sector to invest in infrastructure where the rate of return on investment is less than that available from more densely populated urban areas.
European funding and public sector intervention is required to provide a more level playing field."

Employment prospects are significant, claimed Cllr. Macdonald:
"The provision of good Broadband infrastructure in the Western Isles can lead to the creation of 300 jobs in the ICT sector.
The creation of these jobs can go a long way to ensuring that many peripheral areas have a sustainable long term economic future."

Concluding his address, Cllr. Macdonald commented "On behalf of all the geographically disadvantaged communities across the European Union, I suggest that our goals should be an Enlargement of our population, which will allow us to maintain social cohesion. The creation of Employment which will allow us to sustain economic growth. The protection of our Environment which will allow us to pass onto our children and grandchildren those very wild and special places we all enjoy and cherish."

Ends

Issued by Nigel Scott
Communications Officer

Tel: 01851 709389 (Work)
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email: nscott@cne-siar.gov.uk