North Yorkshire
County Council
Central
Services
Executive
Members
August
19th 2021
North
Yorkshire Digital Infrastructure Programme
Report of the
Assistant Director – Technology and Change
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1.0
Purpose of
Report
For the
Executive Member for Access, in consultation with the Corporate
Director Strategic Resources and the Executive Member for Customer
Engagement to :
1.1
Authorise the
Corporate Director Strategic Resources to accept an additional
£300k in Getting Building Fund (GBF) grant funding from the
York and North Yorkshire Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) for
delivery of the North Yorkshire Digital Infrastructure Programme;
and
1.2
This
is in addition to the £3m already authorised for the North
Yorkshire Digital Infrastructure Programme.
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2.0
Background
2.1
In
June 2020 central government announced the Getting Building Fund,
with the aim to deliver “oven ready” local
infrastructure improvements by December 2021. Funding would be
awarded to LEPs across the country, which would then be allocated
to specific projects within each LEP geography.
2.2
Following a review of initial expressions of interest the LEP was
awarded £15.4million from central government to
allocate to key projects within the
LEP area.
2.2
Based
on the expression of interests received, the LEP invited the County
Council to submit a business case for the North Yorkshire Digital
Infrastructure Programme. The grant covers three main aspects,
building free Wi-Fi provision to 16 Town across North Yorkshire,
Extending Local Full Fibre Network (LFFN) to 6 Business Parks, and
delivering an Internet of Things network to 95% of North Yorkshire.
The value of the funding bid was £3.0M.
2.3
An
additional £300k has been made available from the LEP for the
Digital Infrastructure Programme, enabling additional LFFN
connectivity to 4 business parks (total 10) as outlined in
2.2.
3.0
Funding
Award
3.1
As
part of the original agreement with the LEP for the GBF funding a
grant funding agreement was drawn-up and agreed between the LEP and
NYCC. As NYCC is the accountable body for the LEP the Council
is unable to enter into a Funding Agreement with LEP. However
the LEP expects NYCC to abide by the terms and conditions of the
funding agreement. A variation to this agreement will be made
between NYCC and the LEP to add the £300K.
3.2
Therefore the
additional £300k in funding will fall under the same terms of
the existing funding agreement.
4.0
Scheme
Delivery
4.1
The
programme is being delivered via NYCC’s telecom company NYnet
Limited, which is a wholly owned Teckal company. The programme is
building on the LLFN project, which delivered gigabit connectivity
to 16 market towns across North Yorkshire.
4.2
The
programme has three main strands: Free Wi-Fi to 16 Towns
across North Yorkshire, extend LFFN to 10 business parks
across North Yorkshire, and create an Internet of Things network to
provide 95% geographical coverage of North Yorkshire.
4.3
The
programme will be delivered by March 2022.
5.0
Financial
Implications and Outputs
5.1
The
additional £300k in funding will be spent across the financial
period 2021-22
5.2
The
County Council will work with the LEP to ensure that all required
information and funding claims are provided in line with the
conditions of the funding agreement.
5.3
OutputsThe
additional £300k will provide funding to extend LFFN to an
additional 4 business parks across North Yorkshire bring the total
number of business parks with access to LFFN to 10 by March
2022.
6.0
Equalities
Implications
6.1
An Initial equality impact assessment screening form has been
completed as part of the original funding key decision and this has
identified that an Equality Impact Assessment is not
required. See Appendix 2.
7.0
Legal Implications
7.1
A variation will be made to the funding agreement between the
LEP and NYCC to add the £300K.
7.2
As outlined in section 3.2 above,
the County Council, as accountable
body for the LEP, is unable to enter in to a funding agreement with
the County Council for this scheme
as this would essentially be an agreement with itself. However, a
letter will be sent to the Corporate Director Strategic Resources
(or sub-delegated
officer) for confirmation that the County Council
will
abide by the terms and conditions of the Funding Agreement in any
event.
8.0
Climate Change Impact
8.1
A climate change impact assessment has previously been carried out,
see Appendix 3. This found that there were likely to be
minimal negative impacts and this is not anticipated to change with
the additional funding.
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9.0
Recommendations
9.1
That the Executive Member for Access, in consultation with the
Corporate Director Strategic Resources and the Executive Member for
Customer Engagement authorises the Corporate Director Strategic
Resources to accept the £300k in Getting Building Fund (GBF)
grant funding from the York and North Yorkshire Local Enterprise
Partnership (LEP) to support the delivery of the North Yorkshire
Digital Infrastructure Programme
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Robert
Ling
Assistant
Director Technology and Change
APPENDIX
1
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Below is the original EIA undertaken for the
initial £3m of LEP funding. This EIA screening tool found that
no full EIA was required.
As this additional funding will not change
anything except add an additional 4 business parks to the LFFN
strand of the Programme of work, no further EIA is deemed to be
required.
This form records an
equality screening process to determine the relevance of equality
to a proposal, and a decision whether or not a full EIA would be
appropriate or proportionate.
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Directorate
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Central Services
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Service area
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Technology and Change
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Proposal being screened
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North Yorkshire Digital Infrastructure
Programme
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Officer(s) carrying out screening
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Robert Ling
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What are you proposing to do?
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The programme
has three main strands:
1.
Build Free Wi-Fi access network in
16 Towns across North Yorkshire
2.
Extend LFFN to 10 business parks
across North Yorkshire, and
3.
Deliver a LPWAN network (based on
LoRaWAN standards/protocol) to enable Internet of Things (IoT)
connectivity across 95% geographical coverage area of North
Yorkshire
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Why are you proposing this? What are the desired
outcomes?
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The desired outcomes will be better
connectivity for businesses on the 10 business parks identified and
contributes towards government targets around gigabit
connectivity.
The LoRaWAN will support IoT connectivity
enabling the council and business’ across North Yorkshire to
take advantage of new technologies. This will have a positive
impact on the development of smart homes and particularly around
monitoring services.
The Town Centre Wi-Fi will provide free access
to the internet, and federated access to Govroam and
Eduroamwithin 16 Towns across North Yorkshire. The access will be
free, but that has to be determined around access to certain
websites or daily allowances to manage within the capacity of
resources.
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Does the
proposal involve a significant commitment or removal of
resources? Please give
details.
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The project is a £3m investment across
the 3 programme workstreams and will require a revenue stream once
the roll out has been completed to ensure the projects have a
lifespan beyond the funding.
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Impact on people with any of the following
protected characteristics as defined by the Equality Act 2010, or
NYCC’s additional agreed characteristics
As part of this
assessment, please consider the following questions:
·
To what extent is this service used
by particular groups of people with protected
characteristics?
·
Does the proposal relate to
functions that previous consultation has identified as
important?
·
Do different groups have different
needs or experiences in the area the proposal relates
to?
If for any characteristic it is considered that
there is likely to be an adverse impact or you have ticked
‘Don’t know/no info available’, then a full EIA
should be carried out where this is proportionate. You are advised
to speak to your Equality
rep for advice if you are in any doubt.
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Protected characteristic
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Potential for adverse impact
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Don’t know/No info available
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Yes
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No
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Age
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x
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Disability
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x
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Sex
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x
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Race
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x
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Sexual
orientation
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x
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Gender
reassignment
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x
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Religion or
belief
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x
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Pregnancy or
maternity
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x
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Marriage or
civil partnership
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x
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NYCC additional characteristics
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People in rural
areas
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x
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People on a low
income
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x
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Carer (unpaid
family or friend)
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x
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Does the
proposal relate to an area where there are known
inequalities/probable impacts (e.g. disabled people’s access to public
transport)? Please give details.
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The Wi-Fi access will help to address certain
inequalities by low income families in accessing the internet.
However as the access is focused around town centres it will not
make a significant contribution.
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Will the
proposal have a significant effect on how other organisations
operate? (e.g. partners, funding criteria, etc.). Do any of these
organisations support people with protected
characteristics? Please
explain why you have reached this conclusion.
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Not that we are aware of
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Decision (Please tick one option)
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EIA not
relevant or proportionate:
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x
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Continue to
full EIA:
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Reason for decision
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The project does not create and environment
for adverse impact on any of the identified characteristics,
although applications and services that may run on the investment
may create positive impacts for Age, Disability, and People on low
income in the longer term. These impacts should be investigated
within their own projects and EIAs’
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Signed (Assistant Director or
equivalent)
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Robert Ling
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Date
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January 2021
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Change impact
assessment
Appendix
2
The purpose of this assessment is
to help us understand the likely impacts of our decisions on the
environment of North Yorkshire and on our aspiration to achieve net
carbon neutrality by 2030, or as close to that date as possible.
The intention is to mitigate negative effects and identify projects
which will have positive effects.
This document
should be completed in consultation with the supporting guidance.
The final document will be published as part of the decision making
process and should be written in Plain English.
If you have any
additional queries which are not covered by the guidance please
email climatechange@northyorks.gov.uk
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Title of proposal
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North Yorkshire Digital
Infrastructure Programme
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Brief description of
proposal
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The programme has three main strands:
1. Build
Free Wi-Fi access in 16 Town across North Yorkshire
2.
Building FTTP to 6 business park across North Yorkshire,
and
3.
Delivering an Internet of Things network to 95% of North
Yorkshire
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Directorate
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Central Services
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Service area
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Technology and Change
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Lead officer
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Robert Ling
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Names and roles of other people
involved in carrying out the impact assessment
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Date impact assessment
started
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December 2020
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Options appraisal
Were any other options considered
in trying to achieve the aim of this project? If so, please give
brief details and explain why alternative options were not
progressed.
The aim of the project is to
deliver a range of digital infrastructure projects as part of the
UK Government funding Getting Building Fund. Full options analysis
was undertaken as part of the business case which is available,
other options were not progressed due to the funding availability
and coverage opportunities.
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What impact will this proposal
have on council budgets? Will it be cost neutral, have increased
cost or reduce costs?
The proposal will be cost neutral
on the council budget as the funding is coming from the UK
Government Getting Building Fund via the York and North Yorkshire
LEP. Services and applications which will have the potential to
operate on the infrastructure will have the benefit to reduce cost
to the council over the longer term but will be the subject of
individual projects and climate change impact
assessments.
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How will this
proposal impact on the environment?
N.B. There may be short term negative impact and longer term
positive impact. Please include all potential impacts over the
lifetime of a project and provide an explanation.
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Positive
impact
(Place
a X in the box below where relevant)
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No impact
(Place
a X in the box below where relevant)
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Negative
impact
(Place
a X in the box below where relevant)
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Explain why will it
have this effect and over what timescale?
Where
possible/relevant please include:
·
Changes over and
above business as usual
·
Evidence or
measurement of effect
·
Figures for
CO2e
·
Links to relevant
documents
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Explain how you plan
to mitigate any negative impacts.
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Explain how you plan
to improve any positive outcomes as far as possible.
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Minimise greenhouse gas
emissions
e.g. reducing emissions from travel, increasing energy efficiencies
etc.
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Emissions from travel
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x
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Reduction in emissions from
monitoring services due to the IoT. Reduction in emissions from
travel for those business on the business parks
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NYCC will look to maximise the use
of the data from the sensors aligned to the IoT network to reduce
vehicle movement across the county
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Emissions from construction
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x
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Some emissions from construction
vehicles
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Where possible – ensure that
vehicle mileage is reduced by planning vehicle movements /
diversion routes etc
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Emissions from running of buildings
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Other
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Minimise waste: Reduce,
reuse, recycle and compost
e.g. reducing use of single use plastic
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x
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Reduce water
consumption
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x
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Minimise pollution
(including air, land, water, light and noise)
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x
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Ensure resilience to the
effects of climate change e.g.
reducing flood risk, mitigating effects of drier, hotter
summers
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x
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Enhance conservation and
wildlife
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x
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Safeguard the
distinctive characteristics, features and special qualities of
North Yorkshire’s landscape
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x
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Other (please state
below)
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Are there any
recognised good practice environmental standards in relation to
this proposal? If so, please detail how this
proposal meets those standards.
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N/A
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Summary Summarise the findings of your
impact assessment, including impacts, the recommendation in
relation to addressing impacts, including any legal advice, and
next steps. This summary should be used as part of the report to
the decision maker.
The project is an enabler for other projects
to utilise and those projects may have a more positive impact on
climate change such as the monitoring of highways to ensure the
efficient use of scarce resources, or better monitoring of air and
light pollution to enable application which will adjust usage to
bring down those impacts. Some negative impacts will be
created in the build phase of this project but they should be
minimal but more than offset by future projects which utilise this
investment.
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Sign off section
This climate change impact
assessment was completed by:
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Name
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Robert Ling
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Job title
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Assistant Director Technology and
Change
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Service area
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Technology and Change
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Directorate
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Central Services
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Signature
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Robert Ling
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Completion date
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January 2021
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Authorised by relevant Assistant
Director (signature):
Date: January 2021
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