Broadway Residents Get Date for Judicial Review of Broadband Poles Rollout

The Lifford Gardens and the Sands Residents Association, which represents part of Broadway in Worcestershire (England), has been informed by the Birmingham High Court that their Judicial Review hearing into the local council’s decision to allow deployment of a new FTTP broadband network using wood poles is to take place on 22nd October 2024 at 10:30am.

ISPreview wrote about the situation in June 2024 (here), which gives the full context. But to cut a long story short, the review focuses upon FullFibre Limited’s build in the village. However, rather than specifically going after the network operator (FullFibre is merely referenced as an “interested party“), the residents have instead been trying to secure a Judicial Review (JR) of the Wychavon District Council‘s (WDC) decision to allow the work to take place.

The case partly reflects the fact that, when deploying new poles for overhead cables (locals find these ugly), there are usually extra considerations for Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) like those that exist in parts of Broadway. Residents claimed that the council may have failed to properly interpret or take account of such considerations, which affect the siting and appearance of the development (i.e. did the council take enough action to ensure the visual impact would indeed be minimised, so far as practicable?) – this is needed for the work to be considered Permitted Development (PD).

Some of this also touched on whether an underground deployment would have been viable as an alternative to poles, which is always a tricky one for cost-sensitive network operators to balance. In addition, residents have suggested that the local authority might have been a little too close to the network operator.

Extract from the Residents Crowdjustice Page:

“When the cable provider first indicated that they intended to pole in Broadway, the residents, the Parish Council and the AONB Planning Officer all registered their objections to Wychavon D.C. We were all ignored as the council chose to do absolutely nothing to prevent the telegraph poles from being erected.

Residents were extremely concerned that Wychavon District Council had appointed a person who was not in planning to oversee the planning directorship dealing with the proposed installation of poles and broadband in our community, when this individual had a pre-existing relationship with the personnel of the telecoms operator (Full Fibre Ltd).

Following a freedom of information request, emails obtained between the two created a perception of bias in the minds of residents that the person appointed by the Council was in favour of the roll out of poles and overhead infrastructure.”

The residents were ultimately successful in securing a JR, which is a special type of court proceeding in which a judge reviews the lawfulness of a decision or action made by a public body. Such reviews are designed more to investigate how a decision has been made, rather than whether the outcome of that decision was the right one. But if successful, the council might be forced into making amendments, which could set a wider precedent.

Meesha Patel, Director of Legal for Wychavon District Council, told ISPreview:

“We’re clear that Permitted Development Rights mean we have no powers to prevent the installation of poles under 15m, force communication infrastructure to be installed underground or to have poles removed once installed. While the original application for a Judicial Review was rejected, we respect the fact that on appeal the court felt a review of the decision-making process was justified and we will present our case accordingly once a date for a hearing has been set.”

Locals have since been busy raising money for the case via their Crowdjustice page and are close to hitting their £10k target (although they might need £20k to properly fund the case). The group has now informed ISPreview that the Birmingham High Court has set a date of 22nd October 2024 at 10:30 am for their first substantive hearing to take place.

The hope is that, one way or another, the case may bring some additional clarity around the issue in AONB and this is something that would be useful for everybody to have. But the risk for locals in that, if they lose, they will be liable for the council’s costs and vice versa.

The risk for the roll-out of gigabit-capable broadband is that operators in AONB could end up having to jump through extra hoops, which might slow their deployments and increase their costs. Some people would clearly celebrate this, but it could also hamper some network upgrades and disadvantage those who do want faster broadband in some of the most poorly served areas; regardless of whether it comes overhead or underground.