Villagers in Poulshot Block BT from Building New Poles for “Fibre Broadband”

Residents in the village of Poulshot (Wiltshire) reportedly used their cars to block an Openreach (BT) contractor after they began erecting 5 new telegraph poles for superfast broadband in a conservation area, which a local Parish council chairman said was done without prior consultation.

The Gazette and Herald quotes council chairman Geoff Collett as saying that the Parish, which had allegedly not been consulted by either BT or the county council, owned the green and the “poles would be a terrible eyesore.” At present only part of the village has access to superfast broadband and Openreach’s work involved extending this to the remaining areas.

Installing telegraph poles can often be significantly cheaper than running the cables underground (a contractor said the cables underground could cost upwards of £200,000 but the poles would cost about £2,000), although residents would apparently still prefer the latter.

A Spokesperson for Openreach said:

“We’re aware of the concerns in Poulshot about our work to provide superfast broadband access to the village. We have asked our contractor to pause this work while we liaise with the local authority to address these concerns.”

A Wiltshire Council Spokesman said:

“Having been notified of this issue and the local concern, we spoke to the contractors and asked that they stop the work they were doing pending a thorough review of their plans for that area. We have updated the local community on this matter and will continue to do so.”

The catch is that by forcing this issue the cost of deployment could make the work too expensive to complete, which would leave part of the village at a distinct disadvantage.