City of York Councillor Criticises Virgin Media for “shoddy” Pavement Fix

Sometimes being a major builder of new fibre optic infrastructure means upsetting the locals with civil works and today it’s Virgin Media’s turn to take some flak, which has seen local York councillor Mark Warters criticise the operator for conducting “disruptive and shoddy” reinstatement work.

The cable operator is currently in the middle of a huge £3bn Project Lightning network expansion, which will take their hybrid-fibre broadband and TV network to an additional 4 million premises by 2019 (around 60-65% UK coverage). Last week Virgin also confirmed that over 1 million of the new premises would be put within reach of their superior pure fibre optic FTTP lines (here).

Virgin’s deployment appears to have been making good progress and seems to have avoided upsetting too many people along the way, but inevitably that won’t be the same everywhere you go and the operator’s antics in the City of York (North Yorkshire, England) appear to have upset at least one local councillor.

The councillor for Osbaldwick and Derwent, Mark Warters, claims that some of Virgin’s civil engineering teams have conducted “shoddy” reinstatement work on pavements in parts of the city and he doesn’t want the same thing to happen in his area.

Councillor Mark Warters said (The York Press):

Having seen the disruptive and shoddy way these works have been carried out in the rest of York, I will not let that situation arise in this ward unchallenged. Given that Osbaldwick is currently covered in daffodils, most of which I planted with the local scouts over the years, as well as many other parts of the ward, I most certainly want to know which areas of verge are to be destroyed and what reinstatement/compensation plans are in place for local communities.

Warters also questioned the need for Virgin’s work when BT’s slower FTTC (VDSL) hybrid-fibre network is already present in the area. “Assuming this is a competing system, what then is to stop ‘XYZ super, super fast broadband’ coming along and digging up the streets in a few years time for yet another competing system? The whole issue seems to be getting out of control with utility companies,” said the councillor.

Many people would welcome the fact that more than a single dominant fibre optic based network is being installed in their area, but apparently not everybody sees it quite the same way. Meanwhile Virgin Media claims to be liaising with the local authority and said they were “committed to ensuring that there is minimal disruption to residents.”

A Virgin Media Spokesperson said:

“We’re always very happy to discuss any concerns with individual councillors and residents, with local meetings already taking place, and we now look forward to continuing our positive discussions with members of City of York Council to bring an ultrafast broadband boost to the city.”

Mind you Virgin Media are in good company, with the joint Cityfibre, Sky Broadband and TalkTalk project also rolling out a new fibre optic (FTTH/P) network across the city of York (progress update), which in the recent past has attracted some of its own criticism for damaging local pavements (here).

Like it or not, civil works often rub a few people up the wrong way and sometimes that’s true even when the work has been done properly. At present most of the major and even some minor network builders are going through a phase of extensive infrastructure upgrades and expansion, so this is unlikely to be the last gripe we hear.