Ignore Virgin Media’s UK Cable Network Expansion Letters at Your Peril

Most of us have become so familiar with the postman delivering marketing letters from the big ISPs that we now bin them without a second thought. One problem with this is that sometimes those letters carry important information, such when Virgin Media intend to dig up your pavement.

At present Virgin Media are conducting a huge £3bn network expansion (Project Lightning) to reach an additional 4 million properties by 2019, which means that around 60-65% of homes and businesses across the United Kingdom should soon be able to take their 300Mbps capable broadband and TV services.

As part of that the operator typically writes letters to local residents in order to inform them of their plans for the area and what work will need to be done, such as digging up local roads and pavements. At this point anybody with a concern can raise the issue, but a few people are being caught out because they overlook the letters (i.e. assuming them to be the same old junk as usual).

For example, some residents of Balloch and Craigmarloch in Scotland have recently been complaining after they returned home to find a lot of disruption around their property and a poor quality of remedial work (here).

Barry McCulloch, Cumbernauld North Councillor, said:

“I am urging everyone to ensure that if they get a letter from Virgin, they open it and read it. It might just be advertising, but it could be to tell you that cables are due to be installed in your street.

I know of some residents who have contacted Virgin to tell them not to dig on their property, but other people have been surprised to find their driveways being dug up.

A Virgin Media Spokesperson said:

“While we continue to expand our fibre broadband network to more homes across the country, we endeavour to minimise disruption for the local communities.

In this case we have received one defect notice and we apologise to North Lanarkshire Council and the local residents affected by the streetworks carried out by contract partners on behalf of Virgin Media.

We are working with our contractors to ensure that all work is carried out with professionalism and at the highest standard, and to safeguard against such mistakes in the future.”

Such disruption is generally a small price to pay if it means gaining access to much better broadband connectivity, although naturally the work must be completed properly. However ISPs should take some of the blame for situations like the one above as if they didn’t put out so much junk then people might be more inclined to actually open the letters.