The consortium which took over the company behind Fibrecity Dundee has announced the successful restructuring of its organisation but its immediate plans do not appear to include reviving the £30m project to bring superfast internet connection to the city.
CityFibre Holdings acquired a number of companies from the i3 Group in January, including H20 Networks, Fibrecity Holdings and Opencity Media.
In his latest announcement chief executive Greg Mesch said he hoped the restructuring would “come as good news for all those that have been impacted by the abrupt halt to works by our predecessors, including employees, customers, residents in the Fibrecity areas and suppliers.”
However, while he went on to pledge that work would soon start again at the UK’s other Fibrecity Bournemouth he made no mention of plans in Dundee.
“The last few months have been very difficult for all those that have been affected,” said Mr Mesch. “While restructuring the businesses, it was really important for us to save and protect the customer contracts, and the fibre to the home and metropolitan fibre-optic networks.
“We are extremely pleased that we are now in a position to begin growing a business again.
“We will develop more fibre to the home and also build more valuable metro-based networks such as the one just completed for City of York Council with our partner Pinacl.
“We will soon start making good the works left unfinished by our predecessors in Bournemouth. We will begin by repairing the network, adding service providers and activating customers. We already have around 20,000 homes that are or can be connected to superfast fibre in the town.
“The company has memorandums of understanding to build Fibrecity networks with a number of towns and cities which represents over one million homes.
“We will develop a consortium with service providers, equipment vendors, financial institutions and city councils to build the next generation infrastructure this country so desperately needs.”
The Courier asked CityFibre Holdings to clarify what plans, if any, it has for Dundee but the company has not replied.
Plans for Dundee to become Scotland’s first Fibrecity were announced in June 2008 and it was initially believed the construction phase would be completed by this year.
However, work did not start until last summer, and after just a few weeks the plug was pulled a move said at the time to be temporary with the loss of 52 jobs.