Transport for London (TfL), a UK public authority with responsibility for most aspects of London city's transport system (e.g. roads, railways etc.), have successfully prosecuted both BT and Cable & Wireless (C&W) over a string of "badly managed roadworks".

The Westminster Magistrate's Court handed down several thousand pounds worth of fines to both firms for a raft of failings that included working without a permit, breach of permitting conditions and failure to correctly notify TfL promptly of works taking place.

The TfL Infringements

* BT was prosecuted for infringements at various locations on TfL roads including: Stamford Hill, Marylebone Road, Blackwall Tunnel, Eastern Avenue and Gunnersbury Lane. They were fined a total of £3,765 and ordered to pay TfL's costs of £5,050.

* Infringements by Cable & Wireless occurred on Lambeth Palace Road and Great Eastern Street. They were fined a total of £1,000 and ordered to pay TfL costs of £2,815.

It's understood that BT pleaded guilty to six counts, while C&W pleaded guilty to two offences. TfL claims to have won £20,000 over the past 12 months in similar cases against utility companies for eight separate offences.


Sadly roadwork's don't always go to plan and utility firms often hire 3rd party contractors to do such work. Many of those can be tempted to cut corners, which sometimes results in serious mistakes. Needless to say that the huge drive to deploy a new generation of superfast fibre optic broadband ISP services around the UK will only make such occurrences more common.

A few months back the Office of the Scottish Road Works Commissioner (OSRWC) directly accused both BT and Virgin Media of having the highest failure rate of all companies in Scotland (here). Apparently 26% of all works tested failed their inspections.

UPDATE 11:20am

A BT spokesperson told ISPreview.co.uk that "Openreach takes any infringement very seriously and we are working hard to ensure there are no further lapses."