Virgin Media Unfairly Criticised Over “eyesore” Street Work

Residents in part of the large South Lanarkshire (Scotland) village of Drumsagard have complained, perhaps unfairly, after contractors working to extend UK ISP Virgin Media’s fibre broadband network – Keir Group – reportedly left the pavements looking like an “eyesore,” except it looks mostly fair to us.

According to the Daily Record, which carries a picture of the supposedly offensive work, “fuming” neighbours in Cambuslang are concerned that the quality of reinstatement could devalue their homes. Oddly locals further complain that the area didn’t need Virgin Media because most homes already had Sky (note: Sky can only supply slower FTTC broadband to the street, while Virgin’s network is 1Gbps capable).

Some residents in the area are also unhappy that they weren’t consulted about the work before it began, although they were notified ahead of time and operators are not required to consult with locals on every single street. If they did so then the national deployment would probably take much longer and costs would rise due to excessive bureaucracy in the process.

A quick look at the only picture provided on the aforementioned website appears to show a pavement that has been filled and sealed in the normal way. The outcome is something that will be common to most streets across the UK where work has been conducted to install or upgrade new services (not only broadband).

Normally we highlight examples in the news where the civils have done a truly bad job, but in this case we believe the criticism is overblown and it’s worth highlighting that for the sake of balance.

As the local authority correctly confirms, operators like Virgin Media have a statutory authority to install services in the public roads or footways and they are not required to fully resurface the entire pavement after such work is complete (that would be very expensive for any company, so they only do their own trenches). The council confirms that Keir’s work is “both satisfactory and fully compliant with the legislation and associated codes.”

A Virgin Media Spokesperson said:

“Virgin Media is in the process of expanding its network in Glasgow which will bring ultrafast broadband speeds to local residents and businesses.

The black strip on the path is a result of narrow-trenching which allows us to complete our expansion works more efficiently and with minimal disruption to local communities.

As such, the condition of roads and pathways have been monitored throughout the build and we will work closely with the council to ensure that any corrective works are completed and meet the required standards.

We apologise for any inconvenience caused.”

As we always say, deploying new infrastructure like this is a very expensive process and sadly some disruption and change to the look of local pavements is often unavoidable (it’s the same everywhere – clean untouched pavements rarely stay that way for long). Nevertheless such things often rub people up the wrong way but in this case the moans do seem to be rather over the top.

However over the longer term a bit of disruption is usually a small price to pay for access to ultrafast broadband connectivity. Many streets have pavements with similar trench reinstatement marks and the housing market is such that the value of better broadband is likely to trump any perceived negative from normal reinstatement work.