Copper cable thieves cause Openreach broadband outage in Thurnscoe

A criminal gang has caused a significant broadband and phone outage for thousands of customers on Openreach’s UK network around the large South Yorkshire (England) village of Thurnscoe. The problems occurred after the thieves damaged the local network while they were dragging the operator’s copper telecoms cables out of the ground.

The incident is understood to have started during the early hours of Friday morning and caused several days of disruption to the community. According to the South Yorkshire Police (SYP), the thieves appear to have lifted manhole covers on Nicholas Lane in the neighbouring village of Goldthorpe before dragging out and cutting the cables, although it’s unclear how much they were able to steal.

The theft followed only a week after a similar event disrupted connectivity in the village of Carcroft, which is 6 miles north of Doncaster and in the same county as Thurnscoe. The BBC News quotes Alison Carr, Police Inspector, as saying there had been a “spike” in cable thefts across Doncaster since the start of summer (inc. other cables, such as electricity lines) and they had already “recovered over £1m worth of copper cables“.

Crimes like this have become increasingly common in recent years, driven in part by the high price of copper and the rising cost of living. Such criminals have no regard for the disruption they cause, which in this case has resulted in a protracted service outage. Disruption like this can be particularly serious for vulnerable residents (e.g. telecare users) and that’s to say nothing of the high costs involved with actually repairing the damage.

A spokesperson for Openreach said:

“We’re sorry to everyone who was affected. Cable theft is a serious crime and can have a significant impact on communities … [we are working] as quickly as possible to repair the extensive damage.”

Earlier this year Openreach revealed that, since April 2024, more than 100,000 people across the UK had temporarily lost the use of their landline and/or broadband due to copper theft with 153km of cable stolen in that time (April 2024 to April 2026) – spanning almost the same distance as from London to Bristol.

However, the criminals are also coming under pressure from a rise in the number of arrests (examples here and here), which are often followed by some convictions (example). Openreach also reported a 30% reduction in cable theft during 2023/24 after introducing a new forensic liquid marker (SelectaDNA) to help track and protect their network (here), although it doesn’t cover older cables that are already in the ground.

Openreach has also recently partnered with EMR, a global leader in metal recycling, to help combat copper telecoms cable theft, not least through the deployment of new signage across all UK sites and reinforcing their policy to refuse any material suspected of being stolen (here).

The ongoing deployment of Full Fibre (FTTP) broadband should, eventually, resolve the core problem as optical fibre has no value to thieves. But this won’t happen for a while because fibre and copper cables often share some of the same ducts (i.e. damaging one also damages the other), and thieves sometimes still confuse the two. Completely removing core copper cables will take a fair few years.

Finally, Openreach has a partnership with Crimestoppers, which sometimes offers rewards for information given anonymously to the charity about cable thefts, if it leads to the arrest and conviction of those responsible – you can contact them 100% anonymously on 0800 555 111 or use their anonymous online form.

You can also contact Openreach’s security team direct or report via the local police (101). But if you see a crime in progress, please call the police on 999.