Atlas: built by £10m public money, sold for £700,000

SCOTTISH Enterprise sold a £10 million telecoms network to Scottish & Southern Energy for just £700,000, it emerged yesterday.

Terms of the deal – announced in March – were not disclosed at the time because of "commercial sensitivities".

Scottish Enterprise said the sale, which came as a result of an "open, competitive bidding process", was ten years ahead of the originally anticipated timescale for the network to be sold off.

In total, SE had invested 9.7m in the Atlas network since 2004, including 1.1m of European Regional Development funding. Scottish & Southern Energy Telecommunications (SSET), a division of the Perth-based utility giant, said it committed to investing a further 1m to complete the development and integration of the network.

A spokeswoman for SE said yesterday: "With the SSET deal, SE exited the project, saving on running costs, while ensuring that further investment is committed … but at no cost to SE or the taxpayer."

Murdo Fraser, deputy leader of the Scottish Conservatives, said: "This looks like a remarkably poor return on a substantial investment of public money."

The controversial 55km Atlas broadband network spans six business parks in Aberdeen, Bellshill, Dundee, Dumfries, Glasgow and Edinburgh.