The Parish Council has received the following communication regarding the three recently erected poles…

From Openreach Pole Objections Team

The area PM-Program Manager tells us that x3 Poles will be removed from the vicinity of Horley Cherwell, OX15 6BQ district. I’m sorry we have no timeframes as yet, but we aim to have them removed within 8 weeks, these recovery works will be managed via our Program Manager moving forward.

If you have any queries please contact the Parish Council at horleypc@gmail.com

See attached document from Oxfordshire Age UK regarding upcoming changes to telephone landlines:

Following the objections raised by the Parish Council and village residents, Openreach have reviewed the installation of the three new poles on Hornton Lane and Church Lane and agreed to remove them. This should happen in the next few weeks.

We are awaiting further information from Openreach on next steps.

As far as we are aware, the Gigaclear proposals for the whole village remain in place and they have assured us that they will not be installing new poles. Timescales for the Gigaclear proposals are not yet firm but they have indicated installation should be within the next 12 months.

The Parish Council is maintaining contact with Openreach, Gigaclear and the Oxfordshire County Council Digital Infrastructure Programme and will provide further details as soon as they are available.

If you have any queries please contact the Parish Council at horleypc@gmail.com

You may have noticed the new poles installed by BT Openreach on Hornton Lane and Church Lane. We have been informed that these are to enable the provision of super fast fibre broadband to approximately 60 houses in the village and the Old School. (NB this is entirely separate from the Gigaclear proposals to also provide superfast fibre broadband to the whole village. More on this proposal will be in a separate post.)

Objections to the installation of these poles have already been made by some residents and the CDC Conservation Officer. The Parish Council will also be objecting on the grounds of safety (specifically related to the pole situated near to the road) and on the appearance of the poles in a conservation area.

Objections can be made by any villager in writing to: BT Pole Objections Team, 6th Floor, Lancaster House, Old Hall Street, Liverpool, L3 9PY or via this link: Pole Objections. The initial response from BT Openreach to the CDC Officer is below. If the reference C80636092 is included in any new objections it will enable them to be linked.

‘Hello,

Thanks for contacting the us, your reference is C80636092  

This is to acknowledge receipt of your concerns/objection.

We will now investigate this with our survey and planning teams and as soon as we have more information we’ll be back in touch.

Some investigations can be quite complex and detailed and therefore may take a little longer than we’d like. We’d like to thank you for your patience whilst we look into this for you.

Just to make you aware, there is no right to object where the apparatus is a replacement, and the new apparatus is not significantly different to the previous apparatus, and is not in a significantly different position. 

BT has statutory code rights to install telecommunications apparatus in the maintainable highway (as defined in Part 3 of the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991) and on private land with the necessary permissions. The siting is an engineering decision to provide or maintain communication services to customers and is a requirement under BT’s Universal Service Obligation.

Regards

Openreach Pole Objection Team‘