Viral Video Sees Neighbours Argue Over Openreach Digging Up Garden
A new set of TikTok videos have recently gone viral – after being viewed over 4 million times – for their depiction of two neighbours arguing over whether or not Openreach have dug up the wrong garden, while engineers are busy laying a new fibre optic broadband cable in the background. But there seems to be a key bit of context missing from the debate.
According to the BBC’s description of the event, Melanie Abbott returned home to find that Openreach’s engineers had, without asking her, dug a trench along the edge of her front lawn in Milton Keynes (England) to run the new cable; something that would certainly irritate most people. At the same time, Ms Abbott’s neighbour, who claims to have apologised, said she was only expecting a narrow trench to be dug by hand within her boundary, not a much wider one on her neighbour’s lawn.
The whole event is covered by a series of TikTok videos, which sadly contain too much swearing for us to share directly. But suffice to say that Ms Abbott disputes, somewhat strongly, her neighbour’s explanation. This has naturally resulted in a lot of people questioning why Openreach dug up the wrong garden in the first place (note: they seem to have used third-party contractors), which is a valid point, as we’d normally expect a wayleave (legal access agreement) to be signed by the property owner first.
Advertisement
The catch is that, according to Openreach’s engagement with the local council, both properties are said to be council owned and not private. In that situation, Openreach would first need primary permission from the council and don’t need to secure a wayleave agreement from either tenant. Engineers may still ask practical permission from the tenant(s), but this is usually more for the purpose of agreeing where the cable will go and is not the same as a legal wayleave.
An Openreach spokesperson told ISPreview:
“Our engineers always need permission to dig when crossing private property and have to apply for a wayleave – a legal agreement between us and the landowner – to cross or dig on land that belongs to someone else to provide service to a third party. We’re currently talking to the local council and investigating further to check whether all the rules were followed in this case.”
As above, the reason Openreach are currently checking with the local council is because the two properties involved are said to be council owned. But the whole situation remains quite confused, and there may well be other aspects that have not yet been completely understood or clarified, which are hard to investigate without knowing the exact location of the incident.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
« Virgin Media UK Adds Support for Fox’s Tubi Streaming Service to TV Platform
Advertisement
Leave a Reply
Privacy Notice: Please note that news comments are anonymous, which means that we do NOT require you to enter any real personal details to post a message and display names can be almost anything you like (provided they do not contain offensive language or impersonate a real person's legal name). By clicking to submit a post you agree to storing your entries for comment content, display name, IP and email in our database, for as long as the post remains live.
Only the submitted name and comment will be displayed in public, while the rest will be kept private (we will never share this outside of ISPreview, regardless of whether the data is real or fake). This comment system uses submitted IP, email and website address data to spot abuse and spammers. All data is transferred via an encrypted (https secure) session.
Just wait until the neighbour sticks a spade through the cable & then argue about who’s going to pay, they don’t dig them very deep at all from what I’ve seen.
Very unlikely to put a spade through the 14mm sub duct that is used by Openreach through a garden, the walls are much thicker than the 54mm grey duct.
Considering that both the homes and the land they sit on are council-owned, it technically means both properties belong to me, since I funded them through my taxes. Hereby, I give permission for Openreach to lay the cable. End of story.
Insane privilege believing just for living subsidized by the taxpayer then they get to actually pretend to own the place
The council needs to step in and discipline them at the risk of them losing their almost free rent
It doesn’t look like they take much pride in the garden anyway.
And? It still doesn’t give any contractor the right to come on to their property to supply a service to next door without the tenant/home owners permission!
Openreach should probably have talked to both neighbours before starting the work to agree the planned work. Of course, if the land is actually owned by the local council, Openreach must obtain the necessary wayleave from the council first. Then the council will need to consult the tenants to explain in sufficient detail what the work will comprise.
This post is far too sensible for this thread. This is a ranty thread for ranty people, there’s nothing for you here.
Just watched some of videos. Even if we ignore the fact the properties are council owned (so not her front lawn) then we can see the front garden is far from being well cared so don’t know why she makes a big fuss. She is only thinking about herself yet we all pay for her council house with our taxes, may be she should be more grateful to other people and offer to help them instead of shouting and swearing? One day you might need their help. I see her TikTok account has been made private, she must have had a barage of abuse so I guess her 5mins of fame turned sour? Maybe is not such a good idea to post about your private life in social media…
+1
Why are you even giving this daylight Mark?
Keep the sh**posting to the platforms that thrive on it and let the cretins that subscribe to those platforms live in that world on distraction and mental degradation,
I come here to see telecoms and tech news not neighborhood drama episodes from the series of tax funded reprobates of Britain.
Precisely because none of the other reports had mentioned that the properties were both council owned, which meant people were messaging us about it based on a misleading impression. Sometimes we write a story just to correct or add vital context to other reports, so people can be better informed.
Fair enough Mark.
Actually Mark having now watched the clipped version of the video, I’m somewhat concerned as to whats happened here, I think the news article lacked information regarding the use of plant to do the excavation here.
I would also add that if it was plausible to factor in cost of plant and Three men than maybe they should put it under the pavement or drive of the neighbor next door….
However I have no doubt that Openreach tried to kill two birds with one stone here and provide the duct for the neighboring property also (which no doubt they will find useful in times to come)
I would also question how Openreach possibly failed to do any notification efforts or maybe even surveyed the garden dug (such as cat and genny scan).
Just wait until they moaning about too many poles soon. Peoples do often hate Openreach for some reason.
‘In my area there is load of houses are all underground cable for FTTC. Now, Openreach throw in load of new poles (for FTTP) – oh wait! Why waste money on ugly poles as they do often go down in stormy bad weather to knock off FTTP. This is totally unacceptable! Surely they can do FTTP in underground but decided not to be, using FTTP over the poles is madness idea.
Dear Openreach if you are reading this, I will not accept any poles in my area, no thanks. Also, I have informed my local MP to raise complaints about Poles.’ – You, November 05, 2025, 08:50:37 AM
https://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php?topic=28306.msg476008#msg476008
Now we’ve heard it all, you couldn’t make it up, Polish Poler complaining about Poles!!!
The Truth: meet quotation marks and a linked citation.
There’s no way you would need that size of trench to bury a length of 14mm sub duct, to safeguard the fibre to the prpperty. Anyway, given a few months in the spring that won’t be noticeable, hardly a bowling green to start with!
* property
Open reach are a law unto themselves, as a private property owner, open reach dyg a 6x10ft hole on private property, said to my daughter because it’s on the pavement side of the fence line it’s public property, however if they had looked on the land registry and listened to my daughter, we had moved the fence in 3 metres to stop Lorry’s damaging the fence and stopping our horses from escaping
Ian, this article is not about your private land.
Now we have the landed gentry complaining about Openreach, whatever next? — makes a change from hearing from Morrisons left hand man, Ad, apparently saving up for a horse so he can ditch the bike!
Looking at the photo provided, I don’t believe that it’s even Openreach, all our Hi-Vis jacket are branded across the back, our civils wear yellow fire retardant gear & we have to have a safe work zone, with sign & guarding. This looks more like an Alt-net set up.
Seems statements from Openreach confirm it was work for their network .
Always lively banter on this forum 🙂
Imagine suffering for years on ADSL and finally your Christmas wish comes true – you are getting connected to a high speed, low latency fibre network. The lady in the video is playing with fire trying to come between the user and his or hers new fibre connection 🙂