A small brain cell recalls a change in safety rules is also involved. Not unlike the minimum height for a cable crossing a road, which is higher now than it used to be, but they are not forcing Openreach to redo them all, i.e. new ones must be at new height and any repairs.

It is almost certainly tied into safety and liability ...

There is one location I know where there are shared utility poles ... the BT cables are strung along and then they depart and go to one or two BT poles before returning to the shared pole!

On the subject of poles:property ratio -
They installed a new pole opposite me to avoid the joint use pole this side of the road and decided the house behind us could be served by running fibre to the next pole along then across the field back towards us. But the near house pole was joint use so they put in a new pole in the corner of my garden to connect to - that was last October. About 2 months ago another pole appeared on the front corner of my property (just in the road). Still no sign of any fibre to them!

From my days in electricity supply I think it all depends on the height of the poles.

Obviously the BT wires have to be a certain height above the road, but to be attached to a electricity supply pole there has to be at least a metre (I think) between them and the lowest power line.

If it is not possible to get that clearance then BT cables cannot be attached, I presume the same would apply to WiFi kit.

Interestingly, it seems Western Power have attached what looks like an approx half metre metal pole to the top of some of the shared Utility poles where the electric cable now runs up that metal pole and then across to the property.

To raise the height across a road, perhaps?

That would be the usual reason.

could potentially be that, though not too sure why the metal poles have only just been installed on a few of the poles within the last couple of weeks.

Lots of Openreach activity on the B road just outside the village. The village is served by Cab 4 on Exchange X however the area near by is served by Cab 8 on Exchange Y. SFC currently says both the cabinets 4 and 8 are down for FTTP.

According to roadworks.org the descriptions are:
1) Splitr to DP - Cable (From Exchange Y direction to just outside the village)
2)Safety for Engineer to work in Underground structure. (From Exchange X direction to just outside the village)

There are at least 6 more planned roadworks in the same area over the next month or so being done by Openreach.

Interesting to see what happens and if the timescale stays at June/July 2016.

In reply to a post by MHC:

It may well be down to who actually owns the poles and if there is capacity for additional loading.

As I understand it, the electricity supply companies are now refusing to allow BT to add additional services to poles that they own - repairs can be done but upgrades NO.

Are they? I had a Shared Access License granted by WPD just a few weeks ago. Wasn't an issue at all.