The Director of Special Projects for Stewart Milne Group, Jim Fitzsimons has added his voice to the chorus calling for property developers to have more of an input in improving Scotland’s woefully inadequate digital infrastructure. It has been agreed by many, including Jim Fitzsimons that the improvement of digital infrastructure in Scotland is essential to the success of the Scottish economy.
There are still too many areas of Scotland that, at the moment, have a strongly inadequate connection to broadband, with both local and national government initiatives not working to address the main problems behind this lack of connectivity quickly enough.
Stewart Milne Group is one of the UK’s leading independent home builders and timber system manufacturing companies. The company has been working on a project bring forward the larges new “town” in Aberdeen, Countesswells. Ultrafast broadband has been installed in this area and it is thought that the work carried out here should be replicated by other developers on projects across Scotland and should be an essential part of the considerations when planning a new housing or mixed-use developments.
The new £800 million community located to the west of Aberdeen will have access to broadband speeds that are measured at 35 times faster than the UK average. It is thought that this connectivity improvement is a first for a new town development. The independent home building company installed the fibre optic network necessary to deliver such significantly higher speeds while also fitting other groundworks services such as gas and drainage.
It should be par for the course across all developments, in Scotland and beyond that the most up to date internet services are installed alongside other essential services. The improvement of connectivity will make new housing developments more appealing, and help them to sell faster. Stewart Milne Group identified the best partner, Grain, to install the best fibre optic network available alongside work taking place on new and existing roads in order to make the installation cost effective.
