Ive hit a power cable in my garden digging out a tree root

[Day6480]

So i bought a house at the end of last year and moved in in July in August I decided to dig out a tree root using a mini digger as I wanted to lay a base for a a garage. While doing it I damaged a western power high voltage line that was less than 18 inches deep. There were no warning tiles or tape (until we had to dig about 6 feet along) it knocked the power out for about 1700 homes including ours for around 20 mins then around 300 homes for about a hour and a half (Not our house) were dug the trench for wpd at the size they said as we had a digger to hand.
About a month ago we received an invoice for just under £3000, £900 for parts and £2000 for Labour. We appealed saying that the cable wasn't very deep, there were no warning tiles and that we had no information on the searches from when we bought the house (the water cables shown up on them) but we were turned down.
Now I understand there should be a wayleave/easement between is and the power company however we don't have one. The only wayleave that exists was between them and the council from 1959 (our house is ex council) is there any way we can get around paying the £3000 on these grounds?

[Day6480]

We have tried they basically said there is no way that we can appeal as we didn't scan the ground, request plans and dig trial holes. We never knew this had to be done in your own garden! Just seems like the guidelines are only there to protect them!

[Day6480]

Yes I do but they won't cover as we didn't have an assessor out at the time of the damage, we weren't aware we would get charges at the time

[Day6480]

blade7 said:

Obviously you charge them £3k for the digger then?

They wanted 1500 for them to do it

[Day6480]

blade7 said:

Did you tell them how much you wanted?

No we never said anything about it. We also had to get sand and put around the cable also put warning tape over it and fill it all back in

[Day6480]

V40TC said:

Ask for a breakdown of the losses
and cost of materials used.

I too would send them a return invoice for £4.5k digger rental by return.

if they can make up charges then so can you.
if they reply "that is ridiculous" then reply " well you started it"

they will not pay out compensation to the homes isolated
they have an unmarked buried cable on your land.

I cannot see there losses add up to the stupid sum they have invoiced you for.
I would not pay
even till I was taken to court
if I lost,
ask for time to pay and drag it out as long as I humanly could.

They are saying it doesn't need too be marked as we should of scanned the ground 1st. We have a break down of the cost the parts came too £900 then £2000 for them too fix it. Seems alot of money tbh. The day it happened they just came out and switched something on the poll so every1 had electric again, then didn't come back for 3 days too fix

[Day6480]

Chrisgr31 said:

I had no idea you were supposed to scan before digging, let alone ask the utility companies where there supplies are. Personally I assumed one would be told when buying a house if you had a supply to someone else running through part of it. After all ypu have a vague chance of knowing where your own supply is.

I'd like to know more about wayleaves and easements as its obvious if you have a telegraph pole, a cable or pipe is less obvious!

I'd also like to know more about wayleaves and easements. I thought looking on the net there was ment to be a new wayleave signed very time some1 new owned the property

[Day6480]

Condi said:

Having worked on farms for years and years, where everyone has a digger and goes about digging holes for all sorts of random reasons, nobody I know has ever scanned the ground beforehand. As a householder the thought wouldn't even cross most people's mind.

Same as me too but I work in a quarry now. I never thought there would be a cable there we know we have a water pipe in there as was on are paper work

[Day6480]

Does any1 know if i can get this cable moved out from my garden. There is a wayleave but only from 69 years ago?

[Day6480]

normalbloke said:

Did you find out if was an HV? Basically if it’s 11 or 33kv plus, you’ve got no chance.

No I havnt will check this out later,so if it is you can't get it moved even tho it's on my land

[Day6480]

normalbloke said:

Very,very unlikely. Where are you located?(ie which DNO are you under?)When was the cable put in? Who owned the land when it was put in?How much of your land does it run under? Why do you want or need it removed? How many people are connected to it?

Western power. Think it was 60 odd years ago think it was council when it was put in. Runs across top of my garden want to put a garage there. Think it goes from a poll in the field into a box in a car park

[Day6480]

normalbloke said:

Sorry, I edited my posted as I didn’t notice you’d mentioned WP in your original post. Does the pole have a transformer on it?

I don't think so or what I can remember

[Day6480]

Jobbo said:

When the location of the cable was not shown on the searches, where do you think the conveyancer should look? Should they visit the property with a spade and find out?

The OP mentions a wayleave with the council who previously owned it. Wayleaves bind the land and I imagine the fact that he knows about the wayleave is evidence that the conveyancer did his or her job. If it didn’t state the exact location of the cable it would have stated what type (HV) which ought to be enough to warn anyone digging.

We didn't know bout wayleave only found all this out after

[Day6480]

MikeStroud said:

I know no one will agree with me however ....

I think it is reasonable for the OP to dig holes in his own property without doing further searches over and above what were done when he bought the house. Why should he suspect there may be an HV cable or oil pipeline going though his land? If his solicitor couldn't find it then he is unlikely to.

However my point is I feel that the utilities should every few years send all private land owners a map showing where their assets cross a private landowners land. At least then it will raise awareness and get passed from neighbour to neighbour and such incidents would be reduced in the first place.

If I owned some high value asset running under someone's property the I would be constantly reminding them of the fact to protect it. Instead the utilities would rather wait for an incident, spent a lot of £ sorting it, then try and recover the costs. Why not be proactive in the first place and raise awareness?

Admittedly even the utilities don't know where all their assets are which may be why they never showed up on the searches in the first place, in which case the utilities should only blame themselves.

OP I would fight the claim on the basis the utilities hadn't published the location of their assets and so never showed up in any searches.

I agree with you there that is what we thought. So after buying the house we now have a garden that we can't have how we want it. You would of thought we should of been told this before buying the property

[Day6480]

PeeWee14 said:

Have you seen the western power drawing , does it show the cable ? I can get you a copy if you haven't

No they never shown us