Peterborough Locals Warn Cityfibre – DON’T BLOCK Our Driveways

Once again contractors working for Cityfibre, which is investing £30m to deploy a new 1Gbps Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) broadband ISP network in the city of Peterborough, have attracted local complaints. A lack of prior notification, blocked driveways / roads, rubble left on lawns and issues of work quality seem to top the gripes.

Sadly this is not the first time that problems like this have been raised in the city (here), although the latest issues appear to be cropping up in different areas including Chippenham Mews, Catherine Close, Rothwell Way, Farriers Court and the Botolph Green estate among others.

Various complaints have been highlighted on CambridgeshireLive, which largely appears to summarise gripes from Facebook (example here). “They ruined part of my lawn in farriers,” said one person and another resident echoed that experience, “When they finally left they didn’t clear up nicely and left clumps of tarmac in my nice neat stones on my front garden“.

Meanwhile others remarked at how access to their estate was being periodically blocked for 15-20 minutes at a time by a truck: “We have regularly had to call an emergency ambulance for our disabled son and it worries me that they won’t be able to get past.”

A few people also complained that their driveways were left blocked overnight, as well as over the weekends, and they claim not to have been given any warning (e.g. “We got notification of it happening about 5 days after they started“).

Plenty of complaints can also be found about the general quality of work and reinstatement. As one resident put it, “They are making the paths look so messy, such a shame as these are very pretty roads in this area, now all you see is patchy black tarmac… and not even neatly done.” Elsewhere locals on Wakerley Drive claim to have refused installation out of fear that they might ruin the areas block paving.

Councillor Andy Coles said:

“Regarding the complaints from residents about City Fibre works in the Botolph Green area, a lot of the problems seem to be coming from work in the service strips that run at the front of a lot of the properties and which some residents have adopted as part of their gardens and driveways. There might also have been missed opportunities to speak to the City Fibre team before the workmen arrive.

The team working in the area are trying to be considerate to residents’ wishes, are approachable and will be as helpful as possible. There is also a supervisor on site at all times while the work is ongoing to try to resolve any concerns. The current trenching team have a specific contact number of 0800 3285156 and City Fibre complaints email is complaints@cityfibre.com.

The trenching work is inevitably disruptive and noisy, and we completely understand residents’ worries about damage and the mess of the digging, but City Fibre are adamant that any damage will be put right. They also are committed to cleaning up at the end of the works to make sure the streets are back to normal.

Louise and I remain in contact with the company and if residents are unhappy with the response they receive from the supervisor or from the complaints email address we are more than happy to take up residents’ complaints to resolve any outstanding issues.

What we shouldn’t lose sight of is what gigabit connectivity to the internet will bring in the future and once this period of disruption is over these improvements in connectivity will come into their own.”

Rebecca Stephens, CityFibre’s City Manager for Peterborough, said:

“We are transforming Peterborough’s digital infrastructure and our city-wide build programme is continuing to gain momentum.

While we strive to manage disruption, we appreciate that some residents may have concerns. We are committed to resolving those issues and in this case we swiftly responded to residents in Botolph Green, reassuring them that full reinstatement will be carried out once works are complete.

As we continue to expand Peterborough’s full fibre network – and connect more premises – we will work with the wider community as well as our partnership with Peterborough City Council to ensure the wider community is fully aware of our build plans through proactive communications.”

Deploying new infrastructure is very expensive and will inevitably create periods of disruption for residents where it takes place, which is often true no matter who is doing the noisy civil engineering side of things. Over the years we’ve seen similar gripes being levelled against Openreach, Virgin Media and various other operators.

On top of that the growing possibility of overbuild between rival ISPs means that we can probably expect to see a lot more gripes like this in the future. In the long run the ability to access affordable 1Gbps broadband speeds should make it all worthwhile and may even boost the value of local housing, as well as the economy, but in the short-term the disruption is perhaps a necessary evil.

At the same time Cityfibre’s deployment in Peterborough does seem to attract more gripes than most and there may only be so many times that the operator can apologise for the same sort of issues reoccurring.