Virgin Media Agrees to Move Light Obstructing Barrhead Street Cabinet

Remember those pensioners in Barrhead (East Renfrewshire, Scotland) who complained that Virgin Media’s new 5ft tall street cabinet “completely blocks out any light from coming into the house” (here)? After a nine month battle, plus lots of bad media publicity, the operator has agreed to move it.

Generally broadband infrastructure builders like Virgin Media do not require planning permission for deploying new street cabinets as they come under permitted development (tougher rules may exist in protected areas), although local authorities do expect such operators’ to situate their constructions in suitable locations that have a minimal impact on residents.

In the case of Barrhead this “minimal impact” approach became somewhat strained as the large cabinet ended up filling nearly all of the view from the couples living room, which might have done more negative damage to their property value than the positive addition of ultrafast broadband. Many people would happily accept such a cabinet if it meant better broadband but experiences do vary.

Rosemary Ferguson (82) said (Barrhead News):

“This has been going on since January and they (Virgin Media) just didn’t want to know. Then the chief executive for the whole of the UK came out this morning and told us the boxes would be moved.

Virgin Media has finally seen sense but they should need planning permission for these types of boxes. There’s got to be legislation brought in to make sure the likes of Virgin Media, with the size of these boxes, go through the planning process.”

No date has been given for when the work will take place, although we wouldn’t be too surprised if residents complained about the disruption that it will inevitably cause. Hopefully this time around Virgin Media will be able to find a better spot for the cabinet, although given the density of housing then it’s possible that the cabinet might just end up irritating somebody else.

However we disagree with the call for planning permission as that would make deploying new ultrafast broadband networks significantly slower and more expensive, which could create a huge financial disincentive for operators’ that might wish to deploy new infrastructure. The Government has already made a lot of changes to facilitate such deployments and we certainly don’t want to see that go in reverse.

In reality disputes like the one raised above are rare and that’s pretty good going, especially considering the many tens of thousands of new street cabinets that have been installed by various different network operators across the United Kingdom over the past few years.