Cabinet blues

I recently wrote about the poor placing of one of those green Broadband cabinets that are popping up all over the place; in our village, it has been installed in a spot that is not only unsightly but dangerous, as it obscures the view for drivers at a junction.

As ever, my readers have come up trumps, and I have received this excellent guide to fighting the problem Not for the faint-hearted, but worth a try.  I am most grateful and I can do no better than to quote my reader in full:

The Openreach code of practice (click here) is probably the place to start.  Then talk to you local authority and ask to see (via freedom of information if necessary) a copy of the notification made by Openreach to install the cabinet.

Check this carefully since it helps if you can show they didn't follow the correct procedure.  You may be able to appeal the siting.  No guarantees.   But also get your local authority's conservation/heritage officer onside.  If the location is in a conservation area, the local authority should have been informed of that fact by Openreach and did have a right to object. 

Openreach install cabinets in open unsightly places because it is cheaper and more convenient to do so.  You will find that they have a raft of answers as to why the cabinet could not go anywhere else.  Key reasons, which you need to be able to rebut: 

• the cabinet has to be less than 100m away from their old copper-cable cabinet, so find that cabinet and get a tape measure.
• everywhere else has pipes underneath, has tree roots underneath, blocks junction visibility, is a security (burglary) risk for a nearby house (people jumping over walls), blocks egress for passengers from a parking space, requires the cables to cross a road, wouldn't allow the cabinet side doors to open (check what sort of cabinet it is - probably a huawei dslam (pronouned hwa-way dee-slam).

Use this to work out where the cabinet could realistically have gone.  

They will then tell you that if you don't have the cabinet just where they put it, they will have to remove it, and your fast fibre broadband with it.  Best just to laugh and call their bluff on that one.