Erection of 15 BT Telegraph Poles Causes Anger in North Yorkshire Village

Openreach (BT) engineers have been accused of “decimating” the picturesque landscape of two rural villages on the boundary of the North York Moors National Park, where the operator has been installing 15 new telegraph poles in order to bring “superfast broadband” to remote homes.

Most people would be happy to finally get decent broadband access in such a remote area, particularly given that the previous ADSL speeds were often sub-2Mbps, but in this case the 9 metre high erections (*pauses for childish giggle*) appear to have rubbed residents of Nether Silton and Over Silton up the wrong way (here).

Ms Lane, Local Resident, said:

“It is just going to completely ruin this area and decimate the landscape. There is talk about cost, but what cost is losing that view?”

Apparently the National Park Authority had offered £15,000 to help Openreach install the new fibre optic cables underground instead of overhead, although the operator noted that this still wouldn’t have been enough because the “overall cost” of going underground could have run to £52,000 and that compares with only £3,000 being spent on the poles.

A spokesperson for Openreach confirmed that their options in the area had been “severely limited“, although they also promised to review the situation to “see if any changes can be made in the future to address these concerns.” We know a fair few rural communities that would happily tolerate a few extra telegraph poles if it meant finally being able to escape the digital hell that is sub-2Mbps ADSL.

A closer look at the area suggests that Openreach might have been planning to serve local premises with an ultrafast Fibre-to-the-Premise (FTTP) service. A similar story cropped up in rural Wiltshire last month (here) and we’re likely to see more of these as the roll-out begins to reach some of the country’s remotest corners.