Moving to a Private Road (chances of FTTP?)

We're looking at moving out of London (where I get 300/20 from VM) to our dream home out in a town in Surrey. The problem is the property a) only gets FTTC (35/2) and b) is on a Private Road. We're heavy users and I'm most concerned about the lack of upload when we can be on multiple video calls, use a ring doorbell etc.

FTTP is being rolled out in the area by Swish, after multiple enquiries they confirmed the road is not planned (other roads nearby are) - I didn't get an answer why but I'd imagine it's because it's a Private Road. Openreach also have the exchange listed to be built by 2026 but I imagine they too might skip the Private Roads.

I don't yet know the specifics of who owns the road, but having checked the Surrey council website it is definitely not adopted.

So my questions are:

1) Has anyone had any success getting Fibre companies to cover Private Roads?
2) Is FTTPoD an option or will they also refuse a Private Road without a Wayleave?
3) If the wayleave was an option does every resident have to agree?

Does the property have any service currently (even a phone line) - if so how does this get to the house?

I live on a private road which has BT ducting installed to each house. When I moved in there was only a copper service delivered to the house but I have since had FTTPoD installed in the same ducts without any wayleave issues.

Since I had the FTTPoD installed, a couple of neighbours have had FTTP installed using the same infrastructure.

If wayleave is required then the owner of the land needs to agree it. Is the land over which the service will be delivered owned by a single landowner? Is it shared between the properties?

Yes it has a phone line with a FTTC based service in use, there are no telegraph poles so presumably it is ducted or buried. The estate was built in the mid 1990s, I don't know if it was standard to use ducting then?

In terms of the owner of the road, I'm sure that will come up on the searches but I don't know at this time. My concern with it being an old-ish estate is the ownership might not be clear or it might belong to all the residents in which case it's considered too hard to install and we end up buying a house permanently stuck in the slow lane.

Do Openreach automatically have a right to access private roads where they have existing phone lines? E.g. If there was ever a problem with the current line or a second one was requested do they have the right to access? If so does that right extend to fibre installation or is it limited to phone lines?

Mid-1990s would have you ducted, they will use existing chambers and ducts to deploy FTTP to you without any issues.

In reply to a post by Morfik:

Yes it has a phone line with a FTTC based service in use, there are no telegraph poles so presumably it is ducted or buried. The estate was built in the mid 1990s, I don't know if it was standard to use ducting then?

In terms of the owner of the road, I'm sure that will come up on the searches but I don't know at this time. My concern with it being an old-ish estate is the ownership might not be clear or it might belong to all the residents in which case it's considered too hard to install and we end up buying a house permanently stuck in the slow lane.

Do Openreach automatically have a right to access private roads where they have existing phone lines? E.g. If there was ever a problem with the current line or a second one was requested do they have the right to access? If so does that right extend to fibre installation or is it limited to phone lines?

Hi There,
I am on a private drive shared with 3 early 90s, we are on duct 56.
You can check if you have postcode and address number via the BT Availability checker

I have 2 FTTP Lines one from Openreach, Netomnia, then Virgin Ducting (HFC - FTTP roll out in progress locally), when there was a concern of blockage due to mapping issues I called Openreach and they located the chambers however if there was a blockage a wayleave may be required if civil avoidance is not working,

I have Gigaclear which comes over private roads and land. Gigaclear asked the land owners for permission which was granted. Gigaclear gave me £40 because the connection to their house runs a very short way over my land.

Private road, here, and overhead cables.........

fttp 1gbits.........with the smaller new csp! (sorry i had to😂)

In reply to a post by jpm:

Mid-1990s would have you ducted, they will use existing chambers and ducts to deploy FTTP to you without any issues.

But in that case, Swish would also be able to use the same infrastructure via PIA. If they have chosen not to, that could indicate there's an issue. For example, there may be ducted pavement chambers but the lead-ins could be buried. Unlikely in 1990's, but not impossible.

If that were the case, OR could decide to install poles when they get around to FTTP. Swish could also install their own poles, but it probably wouldn't be worth their while (and in any case you'd get two sets of poles if OR install their own later).

See if you can find someone to talk to at Swish about their plans and why/if you have been excluded. But even if they said you were in plan, there are no guarantees that they will actually deliver. It's not available until it's available.

You therefore have to decide: if broadband is important to you, could you live on 5G or Starlink for a (possibly) substantial number of years? Or should you forget this house and find somewhere else?

My advice is always the same. Don't move to a new house with poor broadband if you can't live with poor broadband. Nobody here can tell you what the providers are going to do or not do.

In reply to a post by Morfik:

So my questions are:

1) Has anyone had any success getting Fibre companies to cover Private Roads?
2) Is FTTPoD an option or will they also refuse a Private Road without a Wayleave?
3) If the wayleave was an option does every resident have to agree?

Not a private road, but my 1988-built house is accessed by a short private drive. CityFibre had no difficulty connecting me using the existing BT duct to the nearest BT chamber and the CF cabinet erected alongside it.

In reply to a post by JonRennie:

Does the property have any service currently (even a phone line) - if so how does this get to the house?

I live on a private road which has BT ducting installed to each house. When I moved in there was only a copper service delivered to the house but I have since had FTTPoD installed in the same ducts without any wayleave issues.

Since I had the FTTPoD installed, a couple of neighbours have had FTTP installed using the same infrastructure.

If wayleave is required then the owner of the land needs to agree it. Is the land over which the service will be delivered owned by a single landowner? Is it shared between the properties?

I'm in a similar situation but no one has rolled out fibre to the home even though an altnet has gone close and the 'private' but is really quite tiny (20 metres cabling).. it's probably in the 'PITA' category even though ducting is there. I'm sure there won't be issues here with wayleaves, it's just a complexity.

YMMV so I wouldn't rule it out but don't assume it will be easy to happen quickly.

I live on a private road. We have 3 FTTP providers. Openreach, F&W and Swish. All cabling is from poles.

OR just upgraded their infrastructure. The 2 AltNets asked for permission (wayleave). Our private estate is a resident managed one. After explaining to the committee that FTTP can only have a positive effect on the prices of all houses on the estate, it was an instant yes to the wayleave.

In reply to a post by Morfik:

1) Has anyone had any success getting Fibre companies to cover Private Roads?
2) Is FTTPoD an option or will they also refuse a Private Road without a Wayleave?
3) If the wayleave was an option does every resident have to agree?

Wayleave's are a pain, I live in a housing association owned block of flats, and we have a new Alt-Net in the street, yet neither the residents (half RTB purchased, half renters) nor the alt-net management are able to get a response from the building owner on wayleave permission. Stalemate.

I live on a private road in Leicestershire. Although the estate dates back to the 1890s, the roads have never been adopted and each resident owns half of the width of the road that faces his/her property. When Virgin Media came to the area, they did not install any services in the estate, so all of the existing telecoms infrastructure is owned and maintained by Openreach. Properties are served by a mix of overhead, buried, or ducted copper cabling.

FTTC has been available for at least 5 years and I presently have reliable ADSL speeds of 60/20. Last year, Openreach installed fibre optic cabling throughout the entire area, including the private estate. They used ducts that were available and if there were no ducts, they used existing poles (plus some new poles) to carry overhead cabling throughoutthe estate.

When, I enquired about the availability of FTTP to my home, I learned that the database showed the service could be provided, but there were "line of sight issues". So when I placed an order in mid-March, I mentioned that Openreach would need to install an additional pole, to carry the cables the last 50 metres to my home. BT accepted the order and agreed an installation date.

I signed a wayleave to allow Openreach to install the pole, and they even paid me for my agreement. The service should have commenced on 12th April but when the engineer arrived on that day, he discovered that the pole hadn't been erected. Openreach returned this week to erect the pole so I hope everything will be completed before too long.

So the message seems to be that if Openreach provide existing telecom services on unadopted roads, they can upgrade those services to FTTP, as part of their current programme. However, each upgrade will probably have to wait until the national programme reaches the area.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

In reply to a post by jpm:

Mid-1990s would have you ducted, they will use existing chambers and ducts to deploy FTTP to you without any issues.

But in that case, Swish would also be able to use the same infrastructure via PIA. If they have chosen not to, that could indicate there's an issue. For example, there may be ducted pavement chambers but the lead-ins could be buried. Unlikely in 1990's, but not impossible.

If that were the case, OR could decide to install poles when they get around to FTTP. Swish could also install their own poles, but it probably wouldn't be worth their while (and in any case you'd get two sets of poles if OR install their own later).

See if you can find someone to talk to at Swish about their plans and why/if you have been excluded. But even if they said you were in plan, there are no guarantees that they will actually deliver. It's not available until it's available.

You therefore have to decide: if broadband is important to you, could you live on 5G or Starlink for a (possibly) substantial number of years? Or should you forget this house and find somewhere else?

My understanding is that a wayleave granted to BT to install and maintain their network doesn't automatically extend to PIA providers who might want to access the land to deploy their own service. Swish might have simply looked at who owned the road and decided not to bother trying to service it.

I have Lit Fibre on a private road through PIA because AFAIK nobody actually checked who owned the land, and I wasn't about to tell them.

Private road here, or maybe you would call it a long drive. A semi and our bungalow down a drive, and we have FTTP via overhead telegraph poles. Openreach lady said they have a wayleave to run the 104 metres of cable via the neighbour's house.

In reply to a post by jpm:

My understanding is that a wayleave granted to BT to install and maintain their network doesn't automatically extend to altnets....

This. The property owner has an agreement with Openreach only, others even using PIA are installing equipment so need wayleave.

In reply to a post by Taras:

Private road, here, and overhead cables.........

fttp 1gbits.........with the smaller new csp! (sorry i had to😂)

Private road here and underground cables....

FTTP 8 Gbits with a 550/75 Mbit backup alongside the option of CityFibre up to 2.5 Gbit symmetrical and imminently, fibre is in the ground, Nexfibre up to symmetrical 2 Gbit. Sorry, I had to.

Over 60% of the population can get it now. It's nothing special anymore and not worth gloating over especially when your only option is Openreach.

Could've at least answered the guy's questions.

I live on a private road, which I own and other properties on it have right of way, in a town in Surrey and I have Swish. I had to do a bit of persuading to get them to serve me and a wayleave needed to be in place, which only I had to agree to as the owner of the road.

Swish decided, with consulting me, that their best option was to dig a trench and lay a new duct down the length of the private road from their chamber on the public pavement all the way to my gate. I just managed to catch the civils guy before he started digging and told them to stop and use the Openreach duct that was already in place. After some grumbling from head office about PIA costs they agreed to do this instead. Then it turned out that the OR chamber outside my gate had been tarmac'ed over some years ago so Swish, to their credit, uncovered it, put a new lid on it and installed a toby box next to it to serve my property. Then came the challenge of getting from the Toby to the house across a good 20m of hard landscaping. More on that story here...

I live in a small village and on a private lane, it's a mixture of pole and there are only two houses with UG Duct (mine being one of them because I put it in when I built this house and I have my own 4 way CBT in my manhole). BT and contractors installed.

I would send an email to [removed by tbb] he will get the team to look into it.
One of his team phoned me up when I was inquiring about FTTP, 6 months later it was being installed.

Edited by seb (Mon 02-Feb-26 21:36:46)

Thanks everyone for the responses. It's good to see that people have had success with private roads and fibre companies are willing to help but it's not easy and some restrictions may not be surmountable soon.

In terms of my own experience, here's what I found out so far. After posting here a member of the community engagement team at All Points Fibre reached out to me and offered to do an investigation on the particular road. I've been thoroughly impressed with the amount of research they've done for a house I've not yet bought so massive credit to them. Here's what they said:

- The estate I'm interested in comprises of 3 private roads with a total of 67 houses
- There's no telegraph poles on the site at all and limited ducting
- Installing poles would be cheapest but is seen as a no-go as likely residents would object as there are none today
- Ducting can be done but due to the cost and disruption they'd want at least 25/67 houses to be interested (they offered to do a mailshot to get registrations to gauge this)
- If there is sufficient demand then the next hurdle is the wayleaves, apparently 6 of the houses each own a portion of the road - it wasn't clear at this stage if all 6 would need to agree or a majority would be sufficient - either way this may be difficult

For all these complications the build was put on-hold but could potentially be done. I was told OpenReach would likely face the same problems with wayleaves so aren't a silver bullet.

I think based on one of the responses here, even with a helpful fibre company the outcome is not in my hands and I have to go into the purchase assuming the worst case.

In reply to a post by Morfik:

I think based on one of the responses here, even with a helpful fibre company the outcome is not in my hands and I have to go into the purchase assuming the worst case.

Yes, and I would advise great caution.

If this is your "forever" house: then that's how long you may be waiting for decent broadband.

If it isn't: then remember it's going to become increasingly difficult to sell a house without decent broadband. Right now Openreach provides 42% UK FTTP coverage, 65% have some sort of FTTP and 80% have some sort of gigabit service.

Even just the Openreach FTTP figure is projected to reach 85% by Dec 2026. If you're lucky, you'll be in the 43% who gain FTTP between now and then; but if not (and it seems there are multiple reasons that make this property difficult/expensive to connect) you could be lumbered.

In reply to a post by Morfik:

the next hurdle is the wayleaves, apparently 6 of the houses each own a portion of the road - it wasn't clear at this stage if all 6 would need to agree or a majority would be sufficient - either way this may be difficult

For those portions which are uniquely owned by one party, that party has an absolute veto over their land - unless there are wayleave rights in their deeds already - eg "A right of passage for the residents of N1 to N2 for the passage of water sewerage, electricity and telecommunications". S

Similarly for portions owned between several parties, then jointly and severally, they will have a right of veto, unless their ownership agreement specifies otherwise, but this will be entirely between the joint owners. Slightly more prospects there, since there may be dissent between the owners.

As candlerb says, t's going to become increasingly difficult to sell a house without decent broadband. My own inclination would be to approach the sellers with this argument and state what is necessary to get fibre connected - eg "wayleave from X Y and Z over PQ and R given to the house you want to buy for your agents to connect telecommunications systems". Obviously, you need a switched on solicitor on board, so if you are using a conveyancing factory, forget it.

In a quick market, you may lose the house to someone not so fussy, but in a slowing market you may strike lucky and have your seller sort it. The advantage of doing it this way is that there is no risk to you and the sellers have relationships established up the street. If they are good relationships, people will be more likely to assist them than they would to help you as the newbie on the street. And better still, if relationships are bad, the neighbours will be only to pleased to grease the path of your sellers away from the street.

In reply to a post by APTMAN:

I live in a small village and on a private lane, it's a mixture of pole and there are only two houses with UG Duct (mine being one of them because I put it in when I built this house and I have my own 4 way CBT in my manhole). BT and contractors installed.

I would send an email to [removed by tbb] he will get the team to look into it.
One of his team phoned me up when I was inquiring about FTTP, 6 months later it was being installed.

The Clive Selley email is the winner. Thank you to @Aptman. I sent an email this morning, got a reply this afternoon and a phone call from an extremely friendly member of Openreach.

Some background I live on the outskirts of a village on a lane of the main road. All properties in the village and beyond have fibre, we don't.

I was informed that we were excluded from the build plan as a gulley was needed to extract water. Where I am now is that the kind person at OR is going to arrange a site visit for the planner in my area to see what is possible. This is a lot more positive than being told that there are no plans.

Thanks again APTMAN

Edited by seb (Mon 02-Feb-26 21:36:30)

I'm on a new (2016-2019) infill in a 50s area. Private road (jointly owned by home owners). Old houses have virgin, not here.
So I moved in (2021) with some frustration, though we did have FTTC.

BT installed FTTP a few years ago. Invisible - I work at home and hadn't even noticed them installing anything, but sure enough ordered. and was hooked up to a splitter that popped up from one of the ducts in the road.

So all seamless

Cityfibre have been installing in the city for years. Not got to our area yet, and not clear if private road will be an issue. I guess the good news is we all get on well and I suspect wayleave wouldn't be an issue (if they ask!)

That being said, I'm very happy with openreach in general. Faster upload is my main annoyance

In reply to a post by planetf1:

Cityfibre have been installing in the city for years. Not got to our area yet, and not clear if private road will be an issue.

If there are existing Openreach ducts, there will be no issue - Cityfibre will just pull their fibres through those. No need for any additional wayleave.

In reply to a post by planetf1:

Faster upload is my main annoyance

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2024/08/openre...
https://www.openreach.com/news/openreach-launch-firs...

But the information so far is contradictory as to whether:
1. It will be available for existing GPON users, or relates to an XGS-PON rollout (OR says users "will be able to use their existing ONT")
2. If it will be a trial, or a full "go live" in April
3. If it will be available in all areas, or certain Project Gigabit areas only

And so far there's no information as to which ISPs will offer it. If it's like the 1.8G down/120M up product, then the answer could be "very few". Nor, of course, the cost.