Fibrus faces objection to its broadband poles from Barrow Town Council

The Barrow Town Council (BTC) in Cumbria, England, has raised an objection of Fibrus’ planned deployment of a new gigabit broadband network near to the Sandscale Haws National Nature Reserve. The operator was in the process of planning to deploy four 9-metre high telecoms poles in a grass verge, alongside a fair bit of underground fibre.

The deployment forms part of the network operator’s £150m publicly funded Project Gigabit contract with the Government, which eventually aims to bring their full fibre broadband network to more than 53,500 additional homes and businesses across some of the hardest-to-reach rural parts of Cumbria. The provider has already reached over 37,700 premises under the contract.

As part of that Fibrus and contractor Viberoptix were planning to extend their network to reach 21 premises around the Sandscale Haws Nature Reserve tourism area, including businesses which operate from the site. The build would cross into a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) around the Duddon Estuary and thus the operator had submitted a prior approval application to Westmorland and Furness Council (WFC).

According to the application (BPA8/2026/0362), most of the new fibre infrastructure is being delivered underground, but it also noted that two small watercourses would make going below ground very difficult and thus the preferred option in that area was to deploy 4 wood poles to link the fibre optic cables for a short distance. The overall work would also deploy 8 Footway-2 chambers, 19 Toby boxes in the footpath and a shade over 1,568 metres of 50mm narrow trenching.

Overall Fibrus appear to be doing their best to account for the sensitive nature of the area, although the NWE Mail reports that BTC have since raised an objection to the plan due to “the proximity of the installation to the main road“. The council also queried whether approval for the works had been received from Natural England (in SSSI areas operators usually have to notify them of their plans) and if a contractor had been appointed (Viberoptix usually do the work).

The use of poles to run overhead cables is a common practice in the UK, where millions have been built over the decades. Poles are quick and cost-effective to build (several times cheaper than trenching), can be deployed in areas where there may be no space or access agreement to safely put new underground cables, are less disruptive (avoiding the noise, access restrictions and damage to pavements of trenching) and can usually be built under Permitted Development (PD) rights. But many people also dislike poles, usually due to their negative visual impact or the lack of effective prior consultation before deployment.

In this case it’s unclear whether BTC were objecting to the proximity of the installation to a main road based on the disruption it could cause to traffic, risk of damage to a sensitive area or due to its visual appearance. The council’s letter doesn’t provide much context and, until yesterday, the application was still awaiting a final decision; but it has now been withdrawn in the hope of finding another solution.

A spokesperson for Fibrus told ISPreview:

“Fibrus is committed to connecting homes and businesses in Cumbria with fast, reliable broadband, using the most effective and least intrusive build solutions available whilst delivering value for money.

We have withdrawn planning application 2026/0362 and we are now reviewing alternative approaches to deployment and will share further information as plans develop.”

Since 2025 network operators have also had to take account of the new industry agreed ‘Best Practice Guidance’. The guidance aims to support the Government’s goal of “ending the deployment of unnecessary telegraph poles” (here), not least by requiring providers to engage more closely with communities before they build.

Naturally, network operators have a difficult balancing act to perform, which is one that both needs to respect the government’s wishes (inc. local communities and councils), while at the same time trying not to damage the wider roll-out and related cost models. If a build becomes too expensive then network operators may abandon it.