Original article ISPreview UK:Read More
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.
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.