We too live in a listed property with TPO's on some of the trees, our copper cable currently runs through a Walnut tree.

We will be getting full fibre in the next 12 months, and many of the houses in our little area will require cabling to be run through trees. Hopefully this won't be an issue, can imagine the cable is pretty robust and will tolerate some tree rub (otherwise Openreach will have to constantly be cutting back branches on existing fibre cabling routes every few years!).

Contractors get paid by the job and they have a great incentive to ditch long duration jobs.

Get onto your provider rather than a tree surgeon.

Thanks for all the replies - it's really useful to hear other people's experiences so I know whether they are talking nonsense or not when they next get back to me. I haven't heard anything official about the next step yet, other than a "We can see you are now on FTTP" email from Zen which I swiftly countered and got an "er, yes, hold on, we'll update you when we get the details back from OpenReach" reply. No follow up from that yet.

The contractor was very keen to tell me that the contracting company would not get paid if he didn't get the job done, but it seems to me that moving straight onto an easier job would be more lucrative for them.

If it’s not your land / trees / shrubbery to clear I would leave it to OR (or whatever provider it may be) to get clearance with the local authority. It’s their gear and they are responsible for the path up to your property.

Where fibre crossed from serving pole to my place, was all my land etc. So I just told them fine, get on with it.

You don’t want to be messing around with TPOs etc on land you have no right to. Just puts you in the crosshairs.

The trees the wire goes through are mine, on my land. I presume OpenReach still need the permission from the LA to cut into them just as I would? I'm worried that they'll just turn up, lop branches off and land me with a fine for ignoring the TPOs. Which obviously conflicts with my worry that I won't get my FTTP installed

(otherwise Openreach will have to constantly be cutting back branches on existing fibre cabling routes every few years!).

So whilst the cable is reasonably robust …. I’m not entirely sure why it is Openreach’s responsibility to cut back trees. Especially if these trees are on private property.

Understood. Trees on your land are your responsibility. OR won’t just turn up and cut your trees without your agreement and permission.

Saying that if surgery or trimming is definitely required, then you would need to agree with OR the extent of that beforehand and then seek the appropriate permission from the LA, depending on the scope of work.

It doesn’t sound like you are sure yet what if anything needs cutting back. Get that agreed first. Then approach LA for any required permissions.

Yes that's the long way to do it.

The branches being trimmed that I am doing is Not anything to do with Fibre .!

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

So whilst the cable is reasonably robust …. I’m not entirely sure why it is Openreach’s responsibility to cut back trees. Especially if these trees are on private property.

Correct on private land (in my case, our DP / pole is on our neighbours land along with offending tree - used to be an old through road) so it's her responsibility to ensure this tree is kept trimmed and away from cabling, but to be honest she's weird and old and is not something she will care about.

When we had a new copper drop wire Openreach trimmed a few of the branches for a clearer path but I wouldn't expect them to do it again unless there was another issue identied with the line or I'm (or a neighbour is) ordering a new fibre connection when it becomes available.