Openreach - £1,153 to lower lines!!!!

Greg-St

Hi All and Anyone,

I live and the middle of 7 houses and have a massive oak tree in my back garden that is rotting and needs cutting down. I've checked for orders on the tree and had tree surgens round and have quotes aropund the £1000 mark for cutting it to its crown. The trees stump is approx 5 meters from my back gate and then there is a path that runs along behind the gate.
My problem is that at some point a bright spark from BT has put up a pole on the other side of the path and 8 cables that go from the pole to the houses run right through the tree. The tree has obviously been there for hundreds of years and the pole is feet from the leafage.
I contacted Openreach and a guy came to look at the work required and said he would give me a quote and ''do his best to keep the cost down''.
Four days later i got an E-mail said ''have done my best to keep the cost down'' attached was the quote of £1153 inc Vat for dropping the 1 ring with all 8 lines attached and the distribution box and leaving it in my garden while the work was done then putting it back up.
I rang the guy back and ask why the price was so high and he said it was because there were 8 lines and it was priced per line. When i said they were all on the 1 ring though, his answer, ''well thats they way it is''.
Has anyone got any advice, been to Ofcom but the don't take up individual complaints.

welshmoneylover

Greg-St wrote: »

Hi All and Anyone,

I live and the middle of 7 houses and have a massive oak tree in my back garden that is rotting and needs cutting down. I've checked for orders on the tree and had tree surgens round and have quotes aropund the £1000 mark for cutting it to its crown. The trees stump is approx 5 meters from my back gate and then there is a path that runs along behind the gate.
My problem is that at some point a bright spark from BT has put up a pole on the other side of the path and 8 cables that go from the pole to the houses run right through the tree. The tree has obviously been there for hundreds of years and the pole is feet from the leafage.
I contacted Openreach and a guy came to look at the work required and said he would give me a quote and ''do his best to keep the cost down''.
Four days later i got an E-mail said ''have done my best to keep the cost down'' attached was the quote of £1153 inc Vat for dropping the 1 ring with all 8 lines attached and the distribution box and leaving it in my garden while the work was done then putting it back up.
I rang the guy back and ask why the price was so high and he said it was because there were 8 lines and it was priced per line. When i said they were all on the 1 ring though, his answer, ''well thats they way it is''.
Has anyone got any advice, been to Ofcom but the don't take up individual complaints.

Pop over to www.gardenlaw.co.uk

I'm sure I read a similar thread ages ago on their forum, and while I can't remember the outcome, I'm sure some other more knowledgeable bod might help out.