They assume I’m here to talk about Bully XLs. To be honest I could have probably done a story about them, or maybe just big, scary dogs in general. As I walk around the Dryden estate in Southey Green, two brilliant white Bullys stalk a garden surrounded by an extra high picket fence. I’m not confident it’s high enough, but I don’t stick around too long to find out.
It’s school run time. Younger kids are chaperoned back by their parents, while the older ones make their own way home. Watching the secondary school kids pick on each other gives me unwelcome flashbacks to my own school experience. One young boy is being teased by some of his classmates for his long hair. “He’s got transgender, him,” says one lad, as if he’s talking about some kind of disease.
The neighbourhood’s residents can reel off a laundry list of problems typical to many council estates in the city: crime, antisocial behaviour, drugs and violence. But during the pandemic, the Laptops for Kids scheme run by Sheffield businessman David Richards also identified it as a pocket of so-called “digital poverty”. The laptops project provided computers to children whose families couldn’t afford them so they could carry on their schoolwork at home.
Last year, a further scheme was developed to give the 360 homes on the estate free broadband for a year. Providing them with free internet access would, it was claimed, connect residents to education and employment opportunities, improve access to public services and promote community engagement.
A 2022 report from the Digital Poverty Alliance found that only 74% of those who earn up to £13,500 per year have the digital skills needed for everyday life, compared to 95% of those who earn over £75,000. Perhaps in response to research like this, last November, Sheffield City Council announced they were giving £72,000 in Community Infrastructure Levy money to a charity run by Richards, the then-chief executive of Sheffield-based software company WANDisco, to roll the programme out.
When I first thought of writing this story, my plan was to visit the Dryden estate and find out how people’s lives had changed and hopefully improved since the free broadband trial started last November. Had social exclusion among elderly people decreased? Did families have more disposable income to spend on life’s essentials or even the odd luxury from time to time? Were children on the estate better able to complete their work when they had to take time off school? That was the plan, anyway. But then I encountered a fairly considerable obstacle: as it turns out, the trial hasn’t actually started yet.
Shaleeka Wilson, an estate resident helping run the project — christened “Dryden Connect” — isn’t initially able to remember the name of the organisation that’s funding it. She goes into her house to get me the high-vis jacket she wears when trying to sign people up in order to jog her memory. It bears the name of the charity EyUp, which is owned by Richards, and its logo, a flat cap, on the right breast pocket. She tells me that, through Laptops for Kids and now Dryden Connect, Richards has had a big influence on the estate, but is also aware of his recent financial difficulties. “It’s been in the news that he’s had problems,” she adds.
Problems is something of an understatement. When the free broadband project was first announced in November 2022, David Richards was riding as high as he had for many years. The Sheffield-born businessman set up his firm WANDisco in 2005, only to be ousted as chief executive — for the first time — in 2016. He later regained control of the company and, by the second half of 2022, had turned it into one of the most bankable firms in the world. It became a so-called “unicorn”, a $1 billion company, in February this year.
Then it all started going horribly wrong. In March, shares in the company were suspended after “significant, sophisticated and potentially fraudulent irregularities” were uncovered. An investigation later found $115 million in “false” sales. The fraud was found to be the work of one senior sales employee, but in April, Richards stepped down from his role with the firm. When WANDisco was relisted on the stock market in July this year, its shares plunged by 96%, while Richards’ £38 million stake in the firm had been all but wiped out. The company will be renamed Cirata next month.
But WANDisco’s troubles haven’t just affected Richards’ personal wealth, they have also impacted his philanthropy too. In 2017, it was reported that Richards and his wife Jane donated WANDisco stock then valued at $1.5 million to create the charitable David and Jane Richards Family Foundation. However, earlier this year the Yorkshire Post reported that on its most recent accounts on Companies House (up to April 30, 2022), EyUp had assets of just £1,555 and zero employees.
Since David Richards’ exit, the task of separating himself from the firm he founded has not been easy. EyUp became the first-team shirt sponsor for Sheffield Wednesday (the team Richards supports) this summer. Before he left WANDisco, EyUp, whose stated aims include “creating software developers, generating jobs and investing in start-ups”, paid $362,691 for the privilege of having their name on the team’s shirts, plus another $362,691 potentially to be paid later in the season “contingent on certain post year-end outcomes”.
However, it was revealed by The Times in July that this money actually came from WANDisco, with the company’s new board saying they had no knowledge of the transaction and that they could not vouch for its reasonableness.
As part of his severance agreement from WANDisco, David Richards is barred from talking about the company. However a statement released to The Tribune on behalf of the David and Jane Richards Family Foundation seeks to skirt around the effect his departure has had on the Dryden Connect project. “As you might expect with an ambitious and complex project with multiple stakeholders, the Dryden project has been subject to some delays,” it reads. “But we hope to bring free, family-friendly internet services to the people of Southey Green before the end of this year or the beginning of next year. Our community-run network aims to transform lives by connecting residents to opportunities to learn, earn and access public services and we can't wait for it to go live.” They added that EyUp is not and has never been involved with the Dryden Connect project — despite the jacket Shaleeka was given — and is no longer operating.
The foundation said that so far, nearly a quarter of households have signed up to the scheme (77 out of 360 houses). One of the causes of the delays to the project is the registration process, which involves residents giving their consent to participate in a related University of Sheffield research study, which will look into the social and economic impact of free broadband. However, The Tribune understands that another reason for the delay is Richards’ departure from WANDisco and the company’s subsequent decision to pull out as a corporate sponsor of the project. When we asked WANDisco to respond directly to this claim they declined to comment.
Asked to comment on the progress of a project which they announced was due to start last November, the chair of Sheffield City Council’s communities, parks and leisure committee Councillor Richard Williams said the authority would now be “looking at reviewing” the work that had been completed. He added that they would “analyse the data” that had been collected so far by the University of Sheffield to determine the “success and next steps of the project”.
Shaleeka is clear the project is needed; there are “a lot” of people on the estate who can’t afford internet access. “It’s expensive,” she explains. “I’ve got four children and it’s £35 a month just for broadband. I have to have unlimited data because they all have consoles, tablets and laptops for work. There’s no way you could run them all just on minimum data.” For many on the estate who are finding it hard to pay for essentials like food and energy, the internet is often the first thing to go when families are struggling.
Jodie Shaw lives on Dryden Drive, one of the half dozen streets where the trial was due to be rolled out last year. She is a big supporter of the project and has even been involved as one of the “ambassadors” enlisted to persuade some of her sceptical neighbours to agree to take part. The reason Jodie is so keen on the idea can be seen happily playing on a swing nearby. Ruby has had to take the day off today due to an “issue at school” — I didn’t like to pry — but hasn’t been able to do the same work as her class from home as they don’t have internet access. In the end she tells me she just practised her times tables.
But it’s not just school work. Jodie says it’s now practically impossible to live your life without broadband internet access. From job centre appointments to doctors’ correspondence and Universal Credit claims to just general life admin. Jodie does have a smartphone but passing this round an entire family isn’t ideal and limited data packages can quickly run out if they are being used by multiple people. “Everything else has increased,” she tells me. “It’s either you eat or put gas and electric on. Internet isn’t a priority for most people around here.”
One solution some in the area have come up with is sharing WiFi, with those who can afford to pay for broadband giving those who can’t their passwords. But again this is dependent on the good will of others, and due to the stigma of poverty, it’s also not always easy to ask for help when you’re struggling to pay for life’s essentials. “You can’t keep knocking on, ‘can I have your new password’,” says Jodie. “Free broadband would be a really good thing for this estate but it needs to hurry up and happen.”
Dr Sara Vannini, a lecturer in information systems and management from the University of Sheffield, is currently involved in a project to map digital exclusion in South Yorkshire. She says that while giving people access to the internet is not a panacea for digital exclusion and that other issues including skills, motivation and literacy also play a role, it is clearly a major factor. “Without access you are really at ground zero,” she tells me.
The relationship between digital and social exclusion is more complicated, however. The research Dr Vannini has been part of has found that it works both ways: that digital exclusion exacerbates social exclusion, and vice versa. As to which comes first, she believes it is a predominantly a societal problem. “I wouldn't say that technology can cause social immobility per se,” she says. “But it can make things way worse.”
The reasons the Dryden Connect project hasn’t got off the ground yet are complicated. It’s true that volunteers like Shaleeka Wilson have met with some resistance — poverty and deprivation can breed a mistrust which is difficult to penetrate, no matter how good an offer you’re providing. “There must be a catch somewhere,” many people think. “I’ll stick with what I’ve got.” But another reason for the delay is something so far removed from daily life on the estate as to beggar belief: the fortunes of a stock-market listed company which was recently valued at over a billion dollars.
Those of us who are fortunate enough not to think much about the cost of our internet might find all of this hand-wringing counter intuitive. If you're anything like me, you might spend your free time trying your utmost to spend less, not more time online. But living offline feels like the internet version of the "poverty premium" — the idea that those on low incomes or living in a low income area often pay more for goods and services (for example, that energy bought through pre-payment meters is pricier than that paid for by direct debit). It's increasingly time-consuming and difficult to live offline: banking, benefits and other forms of government support are most easily accessed via the internet.
The fact that David Richards wanted to use some of his vast wealth to address digital exclusion in his home city should be applauded. The Laptops for Kids scheme during Covid did just that and Dryden Connect was meant to build on it, not just by providing computer hardware but by giving people access to a high-quality internet connection and all the benefits that would bring. But the Dryden estate doesn’t have its free broadband yet — and the fallout from WANDisco’s implosion continues. Last month, the firm’s board asked Richards and another former director to repay £650,000 in bonuses they had received in 2022, a request which they “robustly rejected”. After spending some time on the estate this week, I find the grotesque inequality of that is difficult to stomach.
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