Kensington and Chelsea UK Reverse Earlier Refusal of BT FTTC Cabinets

It’s back on. The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in London (England) has finally resolved last year’s dispute over street cabinet placement with BT (here), which saw the operator withdraw from plans to make superfast broadband (FTTC) ISP services available to 34,200 premises in the area.

BTOpenreach originally withdrew from a plan to upgrade 108 local street cabinets after the council unceremoniously rejected 96 of the proposed upgrades because it wanted to focus on work to “de-clutter” the streets. At the time BT said that it intended to “re-focus our engineers’ efforts in other areas where planning authorities have taken a positive approach“.

But all is apparently now forgiven after BT and the council were finally able to agree, through joint site visits to all of the proposed locations, a home for 140 new street cabinets in the area.

Tim Ahern, the Royal Borough’s Cabinet Member for Planning Policy, said:

“Fibre broadband will provide a major boost both for residents and businesses in the borough, so we’re glad to have been able to reach an agreement with Openreach which allows for the deployment of this technology whilst safeguarding the historic integrity of the borough. We look forward to working with Openreach in a spirit of cooperation to maximise the benefits of fibre broadband across Kensington and Chelsea as soon as possible.”

Liv Garfield, CEO of Openreach, said:

“The borough takes great care over its streetscape so deploying a new network in such an area can be a challenge for everyone involved, but the leadership of the borough have demonstrated a real desire over recent months to engage with us and ensure that their residents gain access to the exciting new products and services that fibre can provide. As a result we’re delighted to be able to make progress on our plans for the area, and be working with RBKC in a collaborative way going forward.”

Apparently work has already begun at 72 of these locations and 18 cabinets are now live. Interestingly over 50,000 homes and businesses in the borough (up from 34.2k) will now stand to benefit from the commercial rollout.