Datacentre hosting at Wightfibre

Currently the Isle of Wight Council's second datacentre is located at St Mary's Hospital, Newport, IW where the local NHS Trust provides rack space, cooling and power facilities. This agreement was originally cost neutral and a mutual agreement between both organisations to utilise each other's datacentres for resiliency. The NHS had a change of strategy and did not want to pursue this and therefore started to charge the IWC for the service. This is now only in place until 31st July 2026.

Following a thorough review, it has been confirmed that there are currently no Council owned sites and very limited options on the Island that are adequately equipped to host a data centre. Wightfibre have been identified as the only local company that can meet all of our requirements including secure rack space, hosting, resilient power, cooling and connectivity to County Hall (where the primary datacentre is located).

It is important to note that any further delay or lack of decision increases the risk of service disruption, data centre resilience issues, and potential impact on critical Council operations. Proceeding with the Wightfibre option mitigates these risks and ensures a level of service continuation.

The Council is issuing this UK5 Transparency Notice as per PA23 regulations and will also issue a UK6 Contract Award notice to begin standstill. This is intended to begin on 29 April 2026 and will conclude at midnight on 11 May 2026 with the contract anticipated to be signed from 12 May 2026.