Conservation area cabinets

Having an EOL and living in a conservation area, is there anyone out there, that has had cabinets installed in a conservation area without any problems?

I have been keeping a close eye on the planning section of my local council's website and all cabinets have been refused planning permission, due to their size and colour.

The council want them painted grey and to be half the size of conventional cabinets. OR have replied in their correspondence, that 'reducing the cabinet size by half, would reduce the number of customers by half'. Of course, that would mean doubling the number of cabinets needed to service the same amount of customers...a fact that seems lost on the planning department.

The latest ping-pong letter between the council and OR, suggests that OR are not willing to re-submit planning applications for half-height cabinets, as that would attract double the £382 planning application fee for every cabinet and double the work installing them.

Here's an extract from the one of the objection letters....

Any additional street clutter is unwelcome within the
Conservation Area.
If we must have new control boxes they should be of a character, quality ,
and design that compliments the character of the Conservation Area.
Cheap unpleasant bits of green tin appearing like a rash around the town are just another unacceptable development

What irks me, is that the council recently removed the black wrought iron street light furniture and replaced them with beige plastic lights akin to a 1995 PC case.

Looks like no fttc for you then, plenty of other areas the money can be spent.

Cabinets can have different colour and also vinyl wraps to help them blend in. Fttp might be an option but cost per property to build makes this unlikely.

If a garden near cabinet then wayleave to site cab there behind hedge might work

Here in Welwyn Garden City 1 or 2 cabinets in conservation areas have been approved but the majority have been refused as "being out of keeping with the street scene" All were initially rejected but the odd couple were resubmitted with changed locations and approved. My chances of FTTC are zero as I'm in a conservation area and my cabinet is not economically viable according to Openreach. Fortunately I could go with Virgin cable if I chose as the conservation area is littered with their cabinets, mostly with the covers hanging off and cables exposed!

We're in a conservation area and haven't had any trouble with cabinet installation. We do have to deal with other bureaucracy, and the best way is to speak to your local councillors as a group and put pressure that way. Best to be prepared and have plenty of examples where the council hasn't followed its own rules.

Our council is one that opted out of Superfast West Yorshire as they couldn't see the value proposition, yet they are quite happy to squander tax payer money elsewhere.

You may be waiting for the grim reaper to remove the fossils in the planning Dpt/council..! Your best chance is to try to mobilise the local community to pressure the council as people losing their seats tends to focus the mind.

so you coull gap fund the cab trough openreachj -- and then have a conversion with the community about whether there is a way of siting the cabing assuming you can ralse the required gap funding -see openreach FAQ's rualr broadband not on a plan

A cab a conservation area near me was refused because the owner of one house said it would ruin his view of the sea. The funny thing about this was Openreach discovered if the cabinet was moved 10 feet further down the road it was outside the conservation area and the house owner still has a cabinet ruining his view of the sea.