Reader’s letter: Our dispute with City Fibre in Eastbourne

In our road (Gore Park Road) we’ve been in dispute with CityFibre for several months about a new and ugly telegraph pole it put up as part of its installation of fibre optic broadband.

With the help of John Ungar, our Eastbourne Borough councillor, we eventually managed to persuade CityFibre to remove the pole. But CityFibre is still intending to use the existing BT poles to string more ugly wires across the road.

Given the hassle that, as you know, going underground causes, some people might well prefer an overhead approach; but others, like many/most of us in our part of the road would prefer the temporary hassle of digging up pavements in order to avoid the permanent ugliness of wires.

In most cases, nobody knows what method CityFibre (or Lightning Fibre, for that matter) is going to use until it’s too late.

I guess at the moment most people won’t even realise overhead is a possibility and think that digging up pavements is the only threat posed by the companies.

Anyway, my point is that at the moment, the decision about which method to use is made by CityFibre alone, with no input from the town.

There is a Ofcom code of practice which CityFibre is obliged to follow, which involves consulting the local planning authority, but as far as I can tell CityFibre has not actually done this.

Hence my suggestion that we should identify those places where the ugliness of wires would be most problematic, with the aim of voluntarily influencing the companies to go underground in those places.

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