The public interest

WHAT links Doncaster’s Keepmoat Stadium with a pioneering project to bring next-generation broadband to tens of thousands of homes and businesses?

Apart from geography and both being in South Yorkshire, the two schemes are now dogged by financial problems, raising questions about why sufficient safeguards were not put in place at the plannig stage to protect the interests of local taxpayers. At face value, neither should be a failure.

The £32m stadium has brought prestige to Doncaster; the problem is that its management company has run up accumulated losses of £2m and needs another £170,000 bailout while talks continue to secure the venue’s financial future.

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This again brings into play the robustness of the original business plan. And it is an issue that is not unique to Doncaster – similar flaws have emerged into the funding of the KC Stadium in Hull.

Another “win, win” for taxpayers should have been Digital Region, a flagship council-led scheme intended to put South Yorkshire at the heart of an internet revolution so residents and businesses are not left disadvantaged by slow connection times.

It received tens of millions of pounds of loans from public bodies to get off the ground. Yet year end accounts reveal a £9.2m loss, largely because take-up has not met forecast projections, and Yorkshire Forward is having to guarantee a further £4m.

These latest accounts now question whether the loans will ever be repaid – and whether the service will be extended, as originally anticipated, to South Yorkshire’s rural communities.

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Yet, as the costs of such projects spiral, and with insufficient financial contingencies built into the original business plan, taxpayers have every right to ask who is monitoring such ventures to ensure that budgets are adhered to?