PROJECT KELVIN
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Your e-mails:
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Joe: "Paul, We need to move the argument on now. A Point Of Presence (PoP) will be of commercial benefit to the Coleraine area. What about Donegal and the other North West areas to be served by the Telehouse and cable ? Normally, there would be many PoPs on this type of infrastructure and we need to know what guarantees there are for other PoPs. Should Coleraine have an advantage over towns in Donegal ?
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Bernadette: Paul, just woke up this morning to the news that we are to get the telehouse here in Derry. Well done to you and everyone else involved in keeping it in the public eye. It just shows you what people power is all about. Well done again.
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Jim from Woodburn: "Our Arlene didn't SEE anything evil about making a wrong decision on moving the TeleHouse without proper consultation. Our Arlene didn't HEAR any evil from the people on the Paul McFadden Show deriding her negative stance on such a huge issue for Derry. Our Arlene didn't keep her mouth shut either and could only SPEAK evil, about the people of Derry winning their just cause to have the original decision to have the Telehouse sited in Derry. The lesson here for Our Arlene is - "If You Can't Say Anything Good About Anyone, Say NOTHING!" I wouldn't like to be keeping Arlene company this weekend, (or ANY weekend!) Great Show."
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Cormac: This has to be the beginning of the story not the end. The telecentre alone is not enough to generate jobs. We now have to adopt a two-pronged strategy to benefit from this investment. Firstly, we need to get our infrastructure up to speed to match this new opportunity. Once the signal changes from fibre optic onto copper cable the signal degrades very quickly and consequently lowers the deliverable speed. We therefore now need to examine and improve the city's IT infrastructure running new fibre optic cables from whereever the telecentre is located in the City to Campsie, Fort George, Springtown, Skeoge and Bridgend! This will cost additional millions. Where will this money come from? We need to ensure there is sufficient office space in these areas. Where will this development come from? Secondly we need market this city and the telecentre in the US, in the I.T. districts of Silicon Valley and Seattle and in financial districts of New York and Chicago.
I believe to achieve this we need setup a separate Telecentre Development office, properly staffed, properly funded, tasked with these two briefs. And we need to do this now. Remember Belfast is on the so-called "Saturn ring" and you can be sure that their infrastructure will be up to speed. If we do not avail of our opportunities others will!
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Anonymous: Arelene Foster! How dare she! She and her bigoted party blatantly stole the Telehouse from this city and now she has the cheek to slag off the good people of Derry for standing up for their rights. 1969 all over again..Having to fight for our Civil Rights. Had this decision not been reversed, I feel we would have had a protest march similar to that of "69" . Hopefully this will bring much needed jobs to the city but, regardless of that, Derry people stood their ground against the DUP's version of Dick Turpin. The only difference between the two was Dick Turpin was male and wore a mask. As for the "negativity of the Derry people" ....given the number of times this city has been passed over for jobs, university, motorways, etc etc etc etc.....Is it any wonder people of this City have negative views? No More! A message to The Arlene Foster's of this world: You have been weighed, you have been measured, and you have been found wanting. Come back when you're worthy.
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Anonymous: Credit where credit is due. Martin McGuinness seems to have called the DUP's bluff on this one, probably with a threat to withdraw from government delivered to Peter Robinson. So fair play to him and also to the person who was the only one in Derry to spot the change in the location - Philip O Doherty. Given the nature of his business he will not be a major benefactor from the Telehouse but he feels passionately about the future of Derry. Let's also remember as Bertie Faulkner says that we are only getting what was due to us and should not be falling over ourselves to thank those who tried to do us out of it. That smacks of an inferiority complex. Now on to a much more important battle the creation of a new university in Derry. A small point re the amazing new expansion of Magee. In the euphoria engendered by Martin McGuinness and Mark Durkan people missed a few important points in the press release. Let's get some passion about this much more important factor in Derry's development. Could Martin and Mark not lead a campaign to get Magee established as an independent university, with people who have Derry's best interests at heart controlling it. Let's look at the recent announcement critically. Firstly , the process of increasing student numbers begins in 2010-2011 almost 2 years away. Then it takes 6 years to get the new student numbers so that's 8 years away even if it is carried out on schedule. ( The Campus in Belfast will be built by then probably). Secondly the number of new students is projected to be 1700 but these are not by any means all full time.
So how many are full time? It would not surprise me if only 1100 or 1200 are full time. The University needs to come clean on this important fact. So we could be looking at 1100 or 1200 full time students over 8 years. Can I just say BIG DEAL. As for the 拢250 million investment . They will probably value Foyle College Lands at 拢125 million and there's half of it away!!! It's a con and the Magee staff and management know it.
Please Martin and Mark have another look at this vague 25 year plan and act now to deliver a real university here. Don't rest on your laurels yet. We will all support you in this.
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Joe the Plumber:
"Well done, to all those who were involved in reversing the decision on Project Kelvin.They are to be commended for working together in unity to get this result.
There is still a greater question though which remains unanswered. Why did we have to go through all the crying and bleating of the past 2-3 weeks in the first place? And why did all the politicians, businessmen, the City Council etc only come together after the original annoucement was made? Fact 1: It's a fact that our representatives' counterparts in Coleraine simply saw an opportunity, decided to work together in partnership and to quietly and (obviously) effectivley lobby to get Kelvin housed in Coleraine - for the opportunities it would afford to their town and the people they represent. No one has the right to criticise or make any accusations towards them for simply doing their job, which is all they were doing! If the same representatives in Derry had been on top of their game and had done their jobs properly since the very original announcement of Project Kelvin - many months ago befor it went out to tender - and had placed themselves right in the heart of the process, this would never have happened! As this case shows: until the deal is done and signed, anything and everything can change! What I would like to know now is this: What has been done, or more importantly, is being done by our representatives - politicians, the council, Chamber of Commerce, business community, Ilex and the North West Development Office to secure any opportunities to bring public sector jobs that are up for grabs as a result of the Bain report and the RPA (Review of Public Administration)? Are we just going to wait again until there is announcement of jobs going to Newry, Enniskillen...and dare I mention, Coleraine?
Fact 2: all of these places are already working very hard to ensure they secure as big a slice of the public sector pie as possible and many places throuhgout the region have established partnerships to achieve this.
Fact 3: Supposedly, the responsibility for this lies with the Economic Development Department within the council, but next to nothing has been achieved so far. More worryingly it appears, yet again, very little is being done on behalf of Derry by any of the before mentioned groups.
Why have we not established a taskforce made up of the most senior representatives from the city to pro-actively work together on a united front to ensure Derry gets its slice of what is one big juicy pie?!?!
We will be left hungry if we do not show the same hunger others are showing!!!Let's take the lessons learned from Kelvin and move on - and focus now on ensuring our representatives are doing their job in the first place.(PS Im not a plumber just an ordinary Joe)
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PROJECT KELVIN
Follow the controversy of how plans for a telecoms hub were changed from Derry to Coleraine. |
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See also:
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Gee Spot..禄
Into the West..禄
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