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Removal of Openreach equipment


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The electricity supply to my property currently comes in via an overhead line. The line originates from a pole on my neighbour's property and traverses my field/garden to another pole next to my property. Following exactly the same route is a long since redundant Openreach line which previously supplied my property and terminates there. There is no shared network from the pole on my property nor from the line between me and my neighbour.

Openreach have said that because the line runs between 2 poles, it is a network and before they do anything a surveyor must come and look at it, for which there is a charge of £300. I have sent them photos and it's clear that the line goes nowhere else but they say they cannot rely on these.

Do i have the right to simply tell them to get their kit off my land? There is no wayleave agreement in place for their equipment and i dont intend to use BT nor Openreach at the new house. More to the point, do I have to pay for them to remove their kit?

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10 hours ago, dpmiller said:

are electric and phone on the same poles?

 

The lecky will be above the tel line so you don’t have to get close to power cables. If I remember right (from my days in BT) The pole will belong to the power company and open reach will have a wayleave to use it, but hey their records have never been good so as I said no one will ever notice if it disappears.

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I'm not sure if it's a problem or not, to be honest.  The line that ran into the old bungalow is just wrapped around the pole that is close to where the old property was.  The issue, I suspect, is that there's another line between the pole on my land and one on the neighbour's.  These are both power line poles but both will need to be altered when I bury the electricity supply and I'm not sure how best to go about getting the Openreach equipment removed.

 

I've emailed the following address:  archive.ripple@openreach.co.uk

 

These chaps are, apparently, pretty speedy with their replies so I should know shortly whether they have a wayleave or not.  Once I have that, I'll do the usual recorded letter thingy to get Openreach to move their kit.

 

If it helps, here's a photo of the line running between the pole on my land with the temporary supply cabinet and across to the pole on the neighbour's property.

 

759655135_phoneline.thumb.jpg.1222aaf690e2dc7e6e0294bb8b71e472.jpg

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It's the same situation we were in.  The pole we wanted removed was an SSE pole but with an Openreach cable sharing it.  Having got SSE to shift their cable (after months of delay) I struggled to get Openreach to move theirs.  What's supposed to happen is that when SSE declare they are going to move a shared use pole, they are supposed to automatically send a request to Openreach (at Liverpool, IIRC) but in our case this didn't happen.  Without the number of that request (I think it's called an ONR number) the local Openreach people can't shift their cable off the pole.

 

The advice I had was to have all the new Openreach underground cables in place (they had been for weeks - we laid the ducts for them and pulled their cables through, leaving them coiled up at the base of the poles) and then, early one morning, "accidentally" snag the cable with the digger and immediately ring the Openreach hotline.  We had an Openreach team there within about half an hour, they took one look at what had happened, saw the coils of cable waiting to be connected and said "This is a (name of local Openreach engineer) job, isn't it?"  Worked a treat, though, except for annoying the lady up the road who had one of those emergency alarms, that started warning her that it wasn't connected, so she walked down the lane and laid into the Openreach guys until I calmed her down, saying it was just and accident and her line would be back up in a few minutes.

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It shouldn't be a big deal at all for Openreach as I don't plan on having a connection with them anyway, I'm going to have a Vonage phone connection via Wessex Internet along with the broadband connection.  The Openreach kit is truly redundant.

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  • 6 months later...

Help. I've got on Openreach 'flying wire' that looks like it's going to be very close to the new build.

 

(@vivienz What did happen in the end with your Openreach cable?)

 

We have a 'flying wire' that crosses a corner of our plot, to poles that are outside of the plot, and I reckon it's going to be very close to our new build so basically in the way, especially of scaffolding.

 

I understand Openreach can 'fly wires' over property without Wayleaves providing it doesn't interfere with the 'normal business of the property'. I presume redeveloping the site is 'normal business'. Does anyone know where I stand with this? 

 

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We had a real problem getting OpenReach to move a wire that was running over our plot.  Getting them to agree that we could put it underground in Duct 56 that they free-issued was relatively easy, but actually getting them to take down the overhead wire and connect up the new underground one was a PITA.  In the end we used subterfuge (at the suggestion of a local OpenReach employee) where we "accidentally" took the wire down early one morning, with the aid of the digger jib, then phoned their emergency number to report the wire was down.  They sent two chaps out straight away, and when they arrived on site we just pointed them to the new cable neatly coiled up at the base of each pole, they grinned, mentioned the name of the local OpenReach chap and then set about just connecting up the new cable.  The whole job was done in about 30 minutes or so.  I don't know if the local chap I knew is still working for them, or whether he's retired, but as you're in the same area I could PM you the phone number I had for him back then.  He was really helpful, unlike his management...

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I'd read your tale Jeremy. I don't know it that ruse is going to work for us because that would mean digging up many meters of right of way to lay the duct but I'd certainly appreciate the phone number as a starting point, thanks.

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1 hour ago, Russdl said:

Help. I've got on Openreach 'flying wire' that looks like it's going to be very close to the new build.

 

(@vivienz What did happen in the end with your Openreach cable?)

 

We have a 'flying wire' that crosses a corner of our plot, to poles that are outside of the plot, and I reckon it's going to be very close to our new build so basically in the way, especially of scaffolding.

 

I understand Openreach can 'fly wires' over property without Wayleaves providing it doesn't interfere with the 'normal business of the property'. I presume redeveloping the site is 'normal business'. Does anyone know where I stand with this? 

 

 

Mine was simply removed and at no cost. There is no replacement cable and as the pole supporting it was for the electric with no other connections, it was a straightforward matter to have it taken down.

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Just now, Russdl said:

 

That's surprising.

 

It surprised me, but as one of our ground works chaps said at the time (when we were all moaning about the crap service from OpenReach) you get the service you pay for...

 

In our case the wire over the top of the plot was connected to an SSE power pole that had been replaced in a new location by SSE, leaving just the 'phone wire on it.  Apparently OpenReach are obliged to move over-sailing wires free of charge if they are causing an obstruction, as this wire was.

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12 minutes ago, JSHarris said:

Apparently OpenReach are obliged to move over-sailing wires free of charge if they are causing an obstruction, as this wire was.

 

That's the little gem I need to confirm.

 

~~~

 

The Openreach wire affecting us comes from a telegraph pole and goes to an SSE pole and then on to the last house in the lane. I'm pretty sure scaffolding will be all around it if it stays put.

 

Why has it taken me so long to realise this??

 

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@JSHarris, it turns out the helpful guy has retired Jeremy so no joy there.

 

I spoke to the scaffolders and they are not at all concerned with the telephone cable so I'm going to leave it be and see what sort of problem it's likely to present as the build progresses. I'm not entirely sure if that is the wisest move but it's 'plan A' at the moment...

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On 30/03/2019 at 14:37, Russdl said:

 

That's surprising.

Not at all.

 

When I was first dealing with Open Reach, they told me a sum of about £3000 was allocated to each new connection, and the customer only paid if the work went over that cost.

 

Shame the other utilities don't have a similar arrangement.

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On 30/03/2019 at 14:36, JSHarris said:

FWIW all OpenReach work done at our site was free of charge, too.  They supplied Duct 56, cable, hockey sticks, cast iron boxes etc all free and did the reconnection and cable move work free.

 

Hi. This is something I think I should be getting on with. I'd like cables to come into my barn conversion via ducts, happy to lay them ourselves / do all the prep work.

Barn is about 200m from the pole but all our land and we need to trench water pipes and electric up too. 

What's my best course of action to kick things off / get hold of the kit needed? 

Thanks. 

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