Wayleave for bt manhole

Ran123ran

I recently discovered that i have a bt box in the ground on my driveway.

I have contacted bt and they have confirmed that they do not have wayleave after doing electronic search on their register.

I have since started wayleave application and had no further update other than that they will send surveyor to asses the apparatus. I called today to see what stage things are at and was told it coulf take 6 months......i asked why and they said the surveyor is on holiday.....they only have 1 surveyor for the whole of uk......i asked them if this was correct as it would mean this person is travelling up and down the country to inspect apparatus......thry said yes its mr shaw......i find this unbelievable.
Anyway the reason i am keen to get this sorted us because the square bt manhole is elevated on one side by 4 inches....so its a trip hazzard when kids out on bikes n may also damage car tyres as its unavoidable to get on driveway without going over it.......i had bt come and look at this and they said they will arrange to get this fixed.....i am still waiting......and have since learned they have no wayleave.

I would rather just bt removed their equipment and put right the driveway as i dont want such problems in future but not sure if this us possible.

Any advice greatly appreciated.

[Deleted User]

Hi,

so are you looking for an annual payment, or just to get it levelled?

Could you not just level it off yourself?

iniltous

Ran123ran wrote: »

I recently discovered that i have a bt box in the ground on my driveway.

I have contacted bt and they have confirmed that they do not have wayleave after doing electronic search on their register.

I have since started wayleave application and had no further update other than that they will send surveyor to asses the apparatus. I called today to see what stage things are at and was told it coulf take 6 months......i asked why and they said the surveyor is on holiday.....they only have 1 surveyor for the whole of uk......i asked them if this was correct as it would mean this person is travelling up and down the country to inspect apparatus......thry said yes its mr shaw......i find this unbelievable.
Anyway the reason i am keen to get this sorted us because the square bt manhole is elevated on one side by 4 inches....so its a trip hazzard when kids out on bikes n may also damage car tyres as its unavoidable to get on driveway without going over it.......i had bt come and look at this and they said they will arrange to get this fixed.....i am still waiting......and have since learned they have no wayleave.

I would rather just bt removed their equipment and put right the driveway as i dont want such problems in future but not sure if this us possible.

Any advice greatly appreciated.

I'm a little confused , you say you are waiting for someone to come an inspect this manhole cover and that you have had 'BT' come and look at it ?, which is correct ?
When you say 'manhole' I'm guessing you mean a jointbox ( a manhole is a structure you use a ladder to climb down into, a jointbox is a much smaller thing, ) perhaps you could post a picture of it.

Generally, putting a jointbox on 'private' land is avoided , but if the box is there to service 'your' address then no wayleave is sought by BT or Openreach or paid, if it's there to allow service to other addresses then a wayleave may be applicable ,you cannot ask them to shift a box that exclusively serves your address, and it may well be part of the original builders development , rather than a later addition by BT/Openreach, so in effect the builder agreed to its location and whoever bought the house tacitly agreed to it being there ( and any subsequent buyer) ...was this box there before you moved in ?, if this is the case (box built at time of house construction) then no separate wayleave will exist ( or be needed)

Something to be aware of ( especially on relatively new developments) is a 'service strip', a delevoper may not have (in a cul de sac for example) constructed a footpath alongside the road edge and the 'services' ( phone, water, gas, electricity etc) that would normally be in that footpath, appear to be in 'private' gardens, generally those houses where the garden appears to go all the way to the road edge, have a service strip, a 1 meter strip ( where the footpath could have existed) this isn't the householders 'land' , and box lids for telecoms , gas, electricity etc, may look like they are in the 'garden' (or driveway) but they aren't ,they are in this service strip, how close to the 'road' is the box lid in question ?
After the roads/footpaths are adopted by the council , even if the householder cuts the grass etc it's 'public' land, and before adoption it's the developers land, it never was or becomes the householders 'land'

I don't know if this is your situation, but am aware of situations where people have asked BT/Openreach to shift a box from 'their' front garden, only to be told the box isn't in their garden , even if it looks like it is, it's in a service strip and it stays put unless the householder wants to pay for its relocation .

As far as one surveyor for the country, that's nonsense, who said this OR ?, did you contact your provider ( you don't say who that is ,BT Consumer or someone else) or OR directly ? even if the box lid in question has 'BT' on it that's just a legacy , it's Openreach's infrastructure, you refer to BT and OR as if they are the same , but for this purpose they are not, your problem has nothing to do with 'BT' but OR ( even if they are part of the same group of company's)

In this situation, if you haven't done so already, look at OR's website , there is a part about relocation of OR services, but its quite likely that the box is legally placed, and would be a chargeable job to shift it, I would check if this box is in the last metre of your driveway ( where a public footpath in other circumstances may exist) if it's a trip hazard, it could be the council that are responsible , they should have checked before adopting the area, and got the builder to sort out any 'defect' but it would be thier problem now, this wouldn't remove it of course, just 'level' it
Sorry , if none of this essay applys to your individual situation

Ran123ran

Initially i had someone ti quote me to level of the elevated manhole cover. He came out and said he wont touch it as its a bt manhole not a drain manhole. So we called bt out for them to look ar it.

They sent soneone out same day but when engineer cane out he said surrounding driveway needs levelled out as rest of drivewat has sunk over time and so a side of manhole cover became elevated. He said he would get someone else out to look at it. The hole in ground is bricked and about 3 or 4 feet deep. There is cables underneath n a metal thing. Bt guy had its serving a few houses round about me and not just my property.

Few dats later i contacted bt openreach to see if they had wayleave and they didnt and advused me to start wayleave application. I did this but would rather not have their equipment undr my driveway....i know there wayleaves payments are only few pounds a year....i would rather they removed it.

I bough the house about 10 years ago.....it used to be uncles house and they bought it new of developer in the 80s snd they dobt recall having a wayleave or signing one.

iniltous

Ran123ran wrote: »

Initially i had someone ti quote me to level of the elevated manhole cover. He came out and said he wont touch it as its a bt manhole not a drain manhole. So we called bt out for them to look ar it.

They sent soneone out same day but when engineer cane out he said surrounding driveway needs levelled out as rest of drivewat has sunk over time and so a side of manhole cover became elevated. He said he would get someone else out to look at it. The hole in ground is bricked and about 3 or 4 feet deep. There is cables underneath n a metal thing. Bt guy had its serving a few houses round about me and not just my property.

Few dats later i contacted bt openreach to see if they had wayleave and they didnt and advused me to start wayleave application. I did this but would rather not have their equipment undr my driveway....i know there wayleaves payments are only few pounds a year....i would rather they removed it.

I bough the house about 10 years ago.....it used to be uncles house and they bought it new of developer in the 80s snd they dobt recall having a wayleave or signing one.

Was the house built by a 'large' developer ( Wimpey, Barrett etc) or a smaller 'one man band' builder ? smaller developers may use non standard methods of provision, and say place a box on your land that has cables to your house and other houses ( a mainstream builder would place this type of box in an obviously 'public' footpath or road) but typically if the developer placed it there, then it will be part of the construction , and you have no authority to have it moved for free
A jointbox that has traffic moving over it should be a carriageway box and have metal lids, footway boxes tend to be concrete lids, a box placed in a driveway , they may have used a metal lid box, but is still a jointbox not a manhole.

An 80's house may have a 'service' strip, it became the fashion around then

Although not very likely , it's not unheard of for something that was in public land initially, to end up on 'private land' , especially when proper processes are not followed, for example , house has no drive but 'spare' land to the side, spare land has 'services' in it, land used (purchased) for driveway, and house changes hands, new buyer dislikes services cover in 'thier' land, discovers driveway not 'theirs', or the services should have been shifted as part of the purchase of the land but never were, any chance this applys to you ?

As I said, the things to consider are, did the builder place it there initially then it's probably part of the 'deeds', is it near the road , it may be in a service strip, does it feed just your house, if it does then it's there exclusively for that property's benefit , all of these mean it wouldn't be moved for 'free', any other reason you may have a case


When OR 'plant' is placed on private property it's usually because there is no alternative, and is quite obvious , so a pole in one persons garden serving another persons house , it's obvious the person that owns the house with the pole in the garden has to consent to it being placed there (at least initially) ...line plant if its placed on private property with the then owners consent ( a builder for example) then when the owner sells , the rights for that equipment to be there don't expire, they continue with the 'new' owner ( may be called an enduring wayleave)
Basically, if the initial person was happy ( paid or not paid) to have someone's equipment placed in their land, when they 'sell' , the equipment owners right to have the equipment in that land endures, when you bought the land/property you also bought the obligation to the equipment owner

Ran123ran

Builder was tilbury ...i think taylor wimpey now.

It has concrete lid. It near the road so just as you get on driveway. I have copy deeds of house and can not see anything about utility wayleave..... will have someone look at them this weekend.

iniltous

Ran123ran wrote: »

Builder was tilbury ...i think taylor wimpey now.

It has concrete lid. It near the road so just as you get on driveway. I have copy deeds of house and can not see anything about utility wayleave..... will have someone look at them this weekend.

If it's near the road just as you get on the driveway , then I suspect that it's not actually on your 'land' but in the 'councils' land, see previous post about service strips , is it possible that applys in your case ?, the engineer who had a look previously, not being a survey officer or planner is unlikely to be familiar with the nuances of what constitutes public and private land
If it is in a service strip/area , then you have no say on the boxes position and relocation would be chargeable , your deeds may show your property boundary, you would need to judge if it's outside or inside that boundary, but TBH , you may get nothing more than a rough idea, I don't believe they will have any measurements etc.

Your deeds wouldn't necessarily show anything about 'utility wayleaves' it's sort of implied, services provided from the outset and for your benefit are not really a wayleave issue, if the builder constructed the chambers in his land at the time of construction, BT/OR supply the frames and covers, the builder builds the boxes, then it's part of the 'build' and you are no more likely to see it mentioned in the deeds than any other 'utility'
Say you wanted to build an extension and the water feed was in the way, the water company wouldn't turn up on request and just shift it to a new location free of charge, it would be moved at your expense, the only difference with BT/OR and say water , is your builder is allowed to move a water feed but not supposed to touch BT/OR stuff, if it is as I suspect, you (unless you have deep pockets) won't get it moved, you may get the council to level the area around it , if it is in their area, otherwise if it's in your land ( but legitimately because the builder put it their, and you bought from someone who accepted the builders decision to place it there) then any restoration works needed may be at your expense
TBH , if you got one person to look at levelling around it, who wasn't interested because it was a BT box lid, I'm sure there will be others that won't care

Ran123ran

I dont think the public strip thing applies as i have a pavement aboit 1.5m wide...which is obviously public ......there is plenty of space for them to relocate it there......having it on my driveway just doesnt make sense if there public space for them to put it

iniltous

Ran123ran wrote: »

I dont think the public strip thing applies as i have a pavement aboit 1.5m wide...which is obviously public ......there is plenty of space for them to relocate it there......having it on my driveway just doesnt make sense if there public space for them to put it

That's really strange, when the estate was being built, the builder would have contacted (because it was in the 80's ) BT, and submitted plans of the proposed delevopment to BT to design a local network ,BT supply the builder with necessary materials ( grey duct, jointbox frames & covers , duct bends, capping for the house walls etc, even the sockets for inside the houses are provided ) and the services of a BT new sites representative to provide assistance , the builder then installs the ducts and builds the boxes to BT specifications , fits the frames and covers , the boxes would be designed to go in in the proposed footpaths etc..( kept in the footpaths or road) the builder got paid by BT ( around £250 per house ) to do this work on BT's behalf, when done, cables are pulled into the ducts, jointed through etc by either BT or other contractors ,
All I can think is that when they came to build this particular box, even though it's proposed position was in a footpath, there was already other utility's in the proposed location in the footpath ( gas pipe, water pipe, electricity duct/cables ) so the box was 'moved' to accommodate these other services and ended up in the way of your drive, or your driveway was intended to be in a slightly different position, but when they laid it down the joint box was in the way and rather than move it, they just incorporated it into the drive...this is the sort of thing the builder and the BT new sites rep should have picked up on and resolved before the plot was sold, but , they may have been no other solution and if it were shown to the person who bought the plot and they didn't mind ( or some inducement given to overlook this issue) then it may still be the case that the builder put it there , it's part of the fabric of the plot and part of the original house sale contract .
The thing is BT didn't build the box, 'Tilbury' builders did , and it was still their 'land/plot' when they did, the original purchaser presumably didn't complain when they moved in.
I'm not sure now , 30 years later if anything will be done about it for 'free', it's not like someone turned up while you were out and built the box , it was built by the house builder , it's not the usual 'wayleave' issue
I suppose it's possible they may make an offer for a wayleave ( because it's cheaper than litigation in the long run ) but I suspect that if the offer of a few ££'s isn't what you want but the box shifting, it may be a bit of a struggle

Ran123ran

I have a friends friend who in wayleave department of energy provider advised that unless bt can prove a wayleave exists they will need to move their equipment as i am not obliged to accept any offer of a wayleave...... she did say i may have a fight on my hands as companies dont like to do this as can be quite costly. She coming over for bit at the weekend so i can discuss direct with her.

lee111s

Is it really worth all the hassle?

Just ask them to level it out.