BT Telegraph Pole in garden question

Hi guys, I have a question.

Scenario:
What would happen if you have a telegraph pole erected in your garden while you are on holiday and you need to use a chainsaw when you come back to cut down a bush near it but you accidently damage the pole, whose fault is it? BT didn't ask for permission to erect the pole in your garden. If there is a risk of there being damage and you are to blame, the bottom line is: you can't use a chainsaw so basically BT is telling you what to do.

What would someone do about this sort of case if it was real?

(One of the many questions I have in my head )

There is a notice placed on new poles with a contact number to ring if there is an objection. Aternatively use this webform.
If its private property and no permission/wayleave has been obtained to place a pole on it then I would raise a complaint to the Openreach Dierctors Office (DSO)

If its DEFINATELY ON YOUR PROPERTY and there with no notice or permission.... I think you have every right to remove it. (BE very sure where it is located is your property first though and no permission was sought).

If a neighbours bush grows over a fence and into your garden you have every right to trim that back see it is no longer on your property (the rest of the bush on there side you obviously can not touch though).

IMO, if after CHECKING CAREFULLY it is on your property then i personally if being honest would see that an axe got taken to the thing in the middle of the night, not by my hand of course

When they turn up to replace it make sure you are home and tell them they aint coming on your property to do anything.

I cant imagine BT have the right to just randomly shove their rubbish on private land, especially someones garden without any permission or consent.

Even if they do and i was in that situation, they would find their poll at the bottom of my garden being vandalised so often they would soon shift it....

Of course it wouldnt be me damaging it daily, honest..... That wouldnt be nice

Was about to say this:

All opens the question of whether BT have ever actually done this? All well and good discussing a hypothetical situation but pointless if it has never happened.

And then did a google

I am amazed that BT are allowed to do this - that is truly crazy especially as BT normally quote excessive lead times because of having to apply for wayleaves (which obviously they don't have to do at all if they can just chuck a pole on private land).

I tip my hat carpet - for once I don't think you are overreacting

I'm having a similar problem at the moment - many of you will recall that a few months ago some contractors working for me pulled a BT cable out of the ground whilst uprooting some Leylandii trees. Fortunately the cable was due to be replaced, so BT did a (FOC) temporary repair, and a new cable was laid in a duct a couple of weeks later.

The contractors had to leave one tree in situ because it was so close to BT's connection box at the base of the pole, so the tree was cut down to the soil line. Now, I want to turf over the area, so I need to cut the stump down a little further, so I have dug a hole around the tree roots, to give myself better access with the chain saw. I was amazed to find that BTO's "duct" (which is a PVC pipe) is only 150mm below the soil line, especially when they made so much fuss about the last cable being damaged. Bunch of muppets !!

I would imagine the law is set up this way to ensure that everyone can get a service without someone holding the suppliers to ransom. A quid pro quo for mandating universal supply, same as with mobile masts and planning exemptions.

Having said that I would have expected reasonable efforts to be made to contact the landowner in advance and discuss the siting of the pole - this has happened in the past on my father's farmland.

Time to dig out property deads and check boundaries firstly to ensure it is actually your land, and not just a border onto a footpath, that everyone treats as their own, but legally is not.

A firm but polite letter to Openreach seems in order, and if no quick reply quickly go up the chain to the CEO's office.

NOTE: The MSE thread started in 2004 prior to Openreach, and procedures within BT may have changed. What they can/can't do comes down to their code powers, but even then I would have expected previous contact via the post on the issue of siting the pole.

Local planning office might be of some help, i.e. if a conservation area then Openreach needed planning permission most likely, or they'll know who to contact for Openreach.

You gotta laugh at BT we run a website for a family pub and pass on the odd email enquiry when one day we got detailed plans from BTO about work they were going to do to move cables and bury them, full plans etc all in an unsolicited email.

Seems they just looked the pub up on the net and emailed the info@ email account.

I checked and they had not posted them so the first the pub knew that they were going to be without phones broadband and the ability to accept credit cards was when I passed the email on.

Tools!

My only experience of anything similar is when we were renovating our old house where the front room used to be the local shop and sub-post-office. We wanted to change the line of the front wall to add gates to make for easier parking but this meant moving the post box smack bang in front of where the new access would be (all on our land). We had little problem with contacting and liaising with the post office getting it shifted. We did suggest we were happy with it just being moved over a few feet into the public verge but in the end they re-sited it across the road to the garage where the sub-post office now operated from.

I think the situation is different if the pole just serves your property against pole used to carry line to several properties .

The wayleaves I have had included the option to give notice asking BT to remove the pole.