Openreach have put BT broadband for my neighbours in a trench they dug through my garden

gm0

Contractors subbed by broadband providers - some of the alternative fibre outfits especially.
Are sometimes paid not by time but by the job.  Not sure if Openreach do that.  But I have seen it when chatting with non-BT installers.

This does create an incentive for easy over difficult and a disinterest in getting into neighbour disputes or checking title plans.   We need to get from this pole/cab/duct.  To that building on that wall.  How.  There.  Done.  

For us it was overhead so - no new issues (just existing ones with trees).

With a semi - with hardstanding one side and a flower bed the other - it's obvious where to put the duct - which could provide fibre to both sides. The easy place to trench near the centreline.  Not necessarily legal if neighbour B asks first and neighbour A doesn't want it (yet). But still obvious.

La La - I don't hear you.  To stop and go away having arrived = no pay today.  
Do it.  Let them simmer down. Activate it. Book the job as done. (Commissioned). Get paid.  
Let the head office sort it out later.  On to the next one

If you really want this dug up. Gone.  And the whole thing done again under hard standing next door. (Dug up and made good, new duct.  You may be in your legal rights to push for that (absent an inconvenient existing wayleave).  And neighbour may not fancy not having the service or their hard standing dug up

This will win no friends.  

Nor will the next randoms with shovels who show up necessarily be properly briefed 

Importantly you said this.

The wiring is going through the pipe that was laid through our garden earlier although the original pipe has been cut and the remaining 25cm of wire buried and exiting the ground next to our neighbours wall. 

This implies they are using existing ducting.  Does this have your or neighbours old landline in it.  If it does and it's an OR asset with active service on.  They will not be particualrly friendly about not reusing it to reach the same building.  And may well dig in and brush you off some more.

It's really up to you how far you wish to push it.   So that the line of least resistance for them becomes something you can live with.

gm0

Also - check provider carefully - watching for false assumptions - new broadband provider may not be BT linked.  
And yet may be fitting new assets on and around OR assets - poles and ducts

But not have OpenReach do it (as would be traditional for older phone and broadband

This is exactly what happened at my house.  New fibre provider cabinet up the street. BT don't have one.  But fibre goes along BT assets to get between the two. It wasn't OR that fitted it. New provider sent own sub-contract piece work crew.

So calling OR for anything - would get a confused "Who? Us? No such job?" response.  Correctly.

Jumblebumble

Eldi_Dos said:

Any company carrying out work for a utility will be required to put out a curtesy board with contact details on the board, if they have not done so the utility will take a dim view of that.

I would make a formal complaint to Openreach detailing what you have said above and ask them to send a Plant Protection Officer to your address to assess the damage.

Follow this up with a letter to their legal department.

I am sure this happens fairly regularly and they will have a procedure to make good, you just have to get over that intial hurdle of making contact.

Hmm
Unless they are digging up council pavements I suspect that most contractors dont do anything of the sort