OpenReach need an electrical supply from my land

bratt9328

Hi, I am looking for a bit of advice and/or guidance....

Openreach have recently fitted a fibre broadband cabinet in the small village where I live. I have been visited by the electricity company (SSE) on behalf of Openreach requesting they run underground wires from the electrical supply originating on my land to provide an electricity supply to the cabinet.

SSE have offered the miserly sum of £4.20 for the wayleave agreement.

I would like to know if I would be able to negotiate with BT (my ISP and parent company of Openreach?) perhaps to gain either payment or complimentary broadband in return for allowing the work to go ahead on my land. Obviously the supply from my land is the closest to the Openreach cabinet and I would imagine the supply from the next nearest (unknown to me) would involve much more digging and expense to SSE/Openreach.

I have been in contact with Openreach who say they only deal with the wire network so cannot help with my query.

I feel that I could possibly be in a strong position to negotiate some sort of deal but do not know how to progress with this or who to progress it with (BT/SSE/Openreach)

Does anyone have any thoughts on this. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Nilrem

The people to contact would be SSE as they'll own the cable, BT group are just their customer asking for a power connection.

Is that £4.20 on a monthly or yearly basis?
If on a monthly one and it's only a short distance I'd probably take it, or ask for it to be increased a bit (to me the faster internet is probably worth more than a few pounds more a month*).
From memory wayleave prices are fairly standardised depending on distance and type of equipment, with a pylon in a farmers field getting something like 4k a year at top whack (for one of huge the national transmission ones), and cables getting far less, especially I suspect the low power/house/streetlight type that would be needed for a BT cabinet.

Also if BT think you're going to refuse and the cost of running the cable via an alternate route is too much higher they may drop the planned upgrade as being too expensive to do at this time.



*Wayleaves can affect property prices, although I suspect for underground standard voltage lines not a lot, but on the flip side available internet speeds are also affecting house prices (I know a fair few people for whom decent internet was a small but important factor in deciding on similar houses).

onomatopoeia99

Nilrem wrote: »

*Wayleaves can affect property prices, although I suspect for underground standard voltage lines not a lot, but on the flip side available internet speeds are also affecting house prices (I know a fair few people for whom decent internet was a small but important factor in deciding on similar houses).

Internet connectivity was a major factor when I moved, one of my non-negotiables.

£4.20/year sounds about standard, I have an overhead cable from the pole on the street to my neighbour crossing my land and I get around the same. Once in place, it's binding on all future purchasers, you can't buy the house unless you agree to it continuing. While the agreements are described as terminable, they really aren't.

The OP may wish to seek professional advice before agreeing.

lee111s

What's your internet speed like at the moment?

Do you want faster broadband?

Most rural people in your position would snap their hand off if it meant you'd get superfast broadband.

You might find that if they can't get power from your supply then it may be too costly to seek it from elsewhere leaving them no choice but to abandon the upgrade leaving your and all yours neighbours in the slow lane. Do you want to bare the brunt of that from the locals?

J_B

I *think* that wayleave fees are standardised.

Probably your solicitor would know

bratt9328

Thanks for your replies thus far.
Yes, it is £4.20 per year and current internet speed is slow. If it comes to it I will of course agree but I just thought that this may be a one off chance to blag free internet. Anyone think I have a chance?

Mister_G

Highly unlikely, as the infrastructure is owned by Openreach, who do not directly deal with the ISPs.

The ISP (be it BT or anybody else) purchase capacity from BT Wholesale (BTW), who it turn purchase it from BT Openreach at a regulated rate.

It may all appear to be BT, but Ofcom have insisted for sometime that BTW treats all ISPs the same, when it comes to pricing.

lee111s

Fast internet to many is something you can't put a price on.

Forget about getting something for nothing and be happy with superfast broadband

iniltous

bratt9328 wrote: »

Thanks for your replies thus far.
Yes, it is £4.20 per year and current internet speed is slow. If it comes to it I will of course agree but I just thought that this may be a one off chance to blag free internet. Anyone think I have a chance?

Although what you suggest isn't unreasonable it's very unlikely that you would get anything more than what's been offered, especially from OR, after all , OR will ask the power company for an all inclusive quote to provide service to the cabinet, any wayleave the power company needs to negotiate would be between them and the landowner , if you insisted on a prohibitively large payment then the power company could look at alternatives or include what you want into the quote they give OR , ask too much when no viable alternative exists and either the cab never gets installed or never brought into service, that's not to say you cannot ask, but you would need to ask the power company for more money (not any other sort of inducement) I dare say he power company will have a reasonable idea of what OR will accept, as they will have provided quotes in the past , and some will have been rejected as too expensive.
OR as with most large organisations won't have the procedures in place to offer free or reduced rental, OR are not a 'retail' company and you would presumably use a retail company to get FTTC service, and OR won't pay you directly for a power company wayleave
Presumably your power feed they want to intercept is originally fed from a public area, and as cabs are normally sited in 'public' land, unless the terrain is unusual, it's odd they want to go onto your land to pick up the power feed and not just pick up your 'feed' in the public road or footpath...quite often the power feed to street lights etc can be used to power a FTTC cab , they have their own consumer unit so are billed separately from the street lighting

boliston

My main worry would be the fact that they might not site the cabinet so close to your property if you kick up a fuss. I am lucky in that my cabinet is right outside my door so always get a rock solid 80mb (down)/20mb (up) connection - if the cabinet was the other end of my street I might not be so lucky.

spyhunter

bratt9328 wrote: »

Thanks for your replies thus far.
Yes, it is £4.20 per year and current internet speed is slow. If it comes to it I will of course agree but I just thought that this may be a one off chance to blag free internet. Anyone think I have a chance?

No chance at all

If you get free internet how do you suggest money is made to supply that service and pay for research into making that service better.???

It cost money to supply a service