Is this open reach box acceptable?
Discussion
Peanut Gallery said:
I had a quick go in MS paint at making the new box more discreet.
(But honestly I hope you can get it moved to next to the others, and get some small shrubs around it. You should get good speeds out of it though!)
Don't take this the wrong way, but I don't think you know what you're doing. (But honestly I hope you can get it moved to next to the others, and get some small shrubs around it. You should get good speeds out of it though!)
Anyone who works in or around this industry knows that the highway authority would never accept such small areas of grass verge along the back of the kerb - it'll all have to be paved.
dickymint said:
I thought it’s not an offence to park across a dropped kerb unless you’re blocking somebody in.
In most boroughs of London depending on if shared (automatic) or not (free registration) the council has powers to ticket and if needed remove the inconsiderate driver. Lifted from website.“When is a vehicle obstructing your dropped kerb
The offending vehicle does not have to be fully obstructing the dropped kerb to be committing a parking contravention. For the contravention to occur, the offending vehicle must be physically over (with any part of the vehicle) the point where the footway meets the carriageway.”
If you are in London don’t even doubt this, within seconds guy on scooter will arrive and ticket you. Also an offence to park on a kerb.
People moan that their car bumper was only 1cm past the slope, tough you get a nice ticket.
In general depends on the borough, where we live is strict, so it’s good. As driving in London is a nightmare.
Some of the photoshops are great, im actually laughing at them 
I have calmed down, i was f
king furious last week, now im still pissed off but less. I can see how people would think i am over reacting but at the same time i just think its disrespectful to place something like that when it could be placed elsewhere. When i do a driveway or garden for someone my obvious intention is making money, however i would never ever do anything which was vaguely detrimental to their property, and thats probably one of the reasons im always busy!
I reckon that looking at it properly this is why the box is there:
The box seems to be fed from the triple manhole in front of the original box.
To get the cable out of that end and round the other side would require removal of the slabs/concrete around that box and the middle one, granted there may well be ducts in the way already.
There is a tree stump, so the trench they did was the easiest route.
As such the easiest location to dig the hole and fit the box is where it is now. Probably a few hours extra labour to place it the other side. I assure you thats the story of my life, everything i do seems to take a bit longer to make a proper job of it, but then i need my reputation and they really dont.
I did chase open reach last night, they can only be reached by email.
Anyway this time it was another person i was dealing with. I gave him the address and straight away he knew what i was talking about and said he was shown it by his colleague last week and that he can see why i am anxious to get it sorted, he said he hopes something can be done but cant promise. So basically another one who agrees it's silly.
Had an architect round today to do some drawings for an oak porch. Imo the house is fairly ugly, its got a large roof, very square front, lots of white soffit. I really think the open gable ended porch will transform it, he also agreed the box was silly and pointed out it can be seen from the kitchen (which it can and doesnt even really bother me) its more the pulling into the road and seeing a display of what boxes open reach can supply to prospective customers
I doubt id get a drop kerb that side either, the people opposite have done it but i would be surprised if it was possible, maybe it is?
I have calmed down, i was f
king furious last week, now im still pissed off but less. I can see how people would think i am over reacting but at the same time i just think its disrespectful to place something like that when it could be placed elsewhere. When i do a driveway or garden for someone my obvious intention is making money, however i would never ever do anything which was vaguely detrimental to their property, and thats probably one of the reasons im always busy! I reckon that looking at it properly this is why the box is there:
The box seems to be fed from the triple manhole in front of the original box.
To get the cable out of that end and round the other side would require removal of the slabs/concrete around that box and the middle one, granted there may well be ducts in the way already.
There is a tree stump, so the trench they did was the easiest route.
As such the easiest location to dig the hole and fit the box is where it is now. Probably a few hours extra labour to place it the other side. I assure you thats the story of my life, everything i do seems to take a bit longer to make a proper job of it, but then i need my reputation and they really dont.
I did chase open reach last night, they can only be reached by email.
Anyway this time it was another person i was dealing with. I gave him the address and straight away he knew what i was talking about and said he was shown it by his colleague last week and that he can see why i am anxious to get it sorted, he said he hopes something can be done but cant promise. So basically another one who agrees it's silly.
Had an architect round today to do some drawings for an oak porch. Imo the house is fairly ugly, its got a large roof, very square front, lots of white soffit. I really think the open gable ended porch will transform it, he also agreed the box was silly and pointed out it can be seen from the kitchen (which it can and doesnt even really bother me) its more the pulling into the road and seeing a display of what boxes open reach can supply to prospective customers
I doubt id get a drop kerb that side either, the people opposite have done it but i would be surprised if it was possible, maybe it is?
when it gets knocked over by errant cars a few times
they may consider a shift.
the Tree Root looks to have been the reason for the current location.
Plus most likely this was installed by Contractors for Openreach.
Complain repeatedly and with a little luck they may shift it before it gets loaded and customers fed from it.
they may consider a shift.
the Tree Root looks to have been the reason for the current location.
Plus most likely this was installed by Contractors for Openreach.
Complain repeatedly and with a little luck they may shift it before it gets loaded and customers fed from it.
m3jappa said:
Some of the photoshops are great, im actually laughing at them
I have calmed down, i was fking furious last week, now im still pissed off but less. I can see how people would think i am over reacting but at the same time i just think its disrespectful to place something like that when it could be placed elsewhere. When i do a driveway or garden for someone my obvious intention is making money, however i would never ever do anything which was vaguely detrimental to their property, and thats probably one of the reasons im always busy!
I reckon that looking at it properly this is why the box is there:
The box seems to be fed from the triple manhole in front of the original box.
To get the cable out of that end and round the other side would require removal of the slabs/concrete around that box and the middle one, granted there may well be ducts in the way already.
There is a tree stump, so the trench they did was the easiest route.
As such the easiest location to dig the hole and fit the box is where it is now. Probably a few hours extra labour to place it the other side. I assure you thats the story of my life, everything i do seems to take a bit longer to make a proper job of it, but then i need my reputation and they really dont.
I did chase open reach last night, they can only be reached by email.
Anyway this time it was another person i was dealing with. I gave him the address and straight away he knew what i was talking about and said he was shown it by his colleague last week and that he can see why i am anxious to get it sorted, he said he hopes something can be done but cant promise. So basically another one who agrees it's silly.
Had an architect round today to do some drawings for an oak porch. Imo the house is fairly ugly, its got a large roof, very square front, lots of white soffit. I really think the open gable ended porch will transform it, he also agreed the box was silly and pointed out it can be seen from the kitchen (which it can and doesnt even really bother me) its more the pulling into the road and seeing a display of what boxes open reach can supply to prospective customers
I doubt id get a drop kerb that side either, the people opposite have done it but i would be surprised if it was possible, maybe it is?
Be persistent, there's nothing wrong with saying "I need to escalate this" if you don't get a satisfactory answer. I've just got the EA to pay to replace a path they damaged, it took six months but they're now paying for a full resurface despite denying all liability at the outset.I have calmed down, i was f
king furious last week, now im still pissed off but less. I can see how people would think i am over reacting but at the same time i just think its disrespectful to place something like that when it could be placed elsewhere. When i do a driveway or garden for someone my obvious intention is making money, however i would never ever do anything which was vaguely detrimental to their property, and thats probably one of the reasons im always busy! I reckon that looking at it properly this is why the box is there:
The box seems to be fed from the triple manhole in front of the original box.
To get the cable out of that end and round the other side would require removal of the slabs/concrete around that box and the middle one, granted there may well be ducts in the way already.
There is a tree stump, so the trench they did was the easiest route.
As such the easiest location to dig the hole and fit the box is where it is now. Probably a few hours extra labour to place it the other side. I assure you thats the story of my life, everything i do seems to take a bit longer to make a proper job of it, but then i need my reputation and they really dont.
I did chase open reach last night, they can only be reached by email.
Anyway this time it was another person i was dealing with. I gave him the address and straight away he knew what i was talking about and said he was shown it by his colleague last week and that he can see why i am anxious to get it sorted, he said he hopes something can be done but cant promise. So basically another one who agrees it's silly.
Had an architect round today to do some drawings for an oak porch. Imo the house is fairly ugly, its got a large roof, very square front, lots of white soffit. I really think the open gable ended porch will transform it, he also agreed the box was silly and pointed out it can be seen from the kitchen (which it can and doesnt even really bother me) its more the pulling into the road and seeing a display of what boxes open reach can supply to prospective customers
I doubt id get a drop kerb that side either, the people opposite have done it but i would be surprised if it was possible, maybe it is?
Good luck
little update today:
Guys came and wired the box today, spoke to them and they agreed it was bad as well, he said it was dangerous and didn't like working on it because he's hidden behind a box on a corner. He phoned his boss (another contractor) but was told to carry on. He said they were on a price and the guys digging also would have been! He agreed it was put there for the easy dig and there was no reason at all why it couldn't go the other side except for the dig being a little bit harder.
Not long after a woman came along, I'm not sure on her role but its something to do with a specific component inside. She also thought it was really bad and potentially dangerous, someone said to me what if a child was waiting to cross standing beside the box , a car wouldn't see them and what if the kid walks out? A bit pc but true imo! i wouldn't want my daughter practicing crossing there tbh.
Anyway, the woman took a load of photos, emailed somebody. About an hour later she came back and told my wife what she had done, asked if we would be happy with it on the other side (which we would) and said don't be surprised to see someone out there soonish surveying it! She did say that they want people to be happy with what they provide.
The woman over the road also came out, saying its a bad position and she actually said all the boxes were badly located because the openreach engineers park in a way which makes it hard getting off her drive and they regularly have radios on which she says she can hear (tbh i haven't heard that). They are out there an awful lot though to be fair, which from my pov is no hardship.
So fingers crossed something may happen!
I know its extreme and may never happen but could you imagine if a child crossed there, got run over and died. It then transpires someone has complained before, it would cause them no end of problems and could mean that each box really does have to have proper planning, could cause them trouble over the whole country and who the fk wants to be responsible for something like that, hence todays health and safety culture. Everyone wants to cover their arse!
Also a couple of councils have said a flat no to any boxes at all, loosing potentially thousands of customers, im sure they wouldn't want local councillors getting involved potentially telling them no more boxes because they are a complete eyesore and are installed in poor locations.
On the other side of town there's another 3 badly located, an engineer told me about them, they aren't outside a house but are grouped together on a footpath, he says it does cause issues working on them because people cant get past.
My faith in them remains, everyone i have spoken to from bt or openreach and even sub contractors have all agreed its a silly position.
Guys came and wired the box today, spoke to them and they agreed it was bad as well, he said it was dangerous and didn't like working on it because he's hidden behind a box on a corner. He phoned his boss (another contractor) but was told to carry on. He said they were on a price and the guys digging also would have been! He agreed it was put there for the easy dig and there was no reason at all why it couldn't go the other side except for the dig being a little bit harder.
Not long after a woman came along, I'm not sure on her role but its something to do with a specific component inside. She also thought it was really bad and potentially dangerous, someone said to me what if a child was waiting to cross standing beside the box , a car wouldn't see them and what if the kid walks out? A bit pc but true imo! i wouldn't want my daughter practicing crossing there tbh.
Anyway, the woman took a load of photos, emailed somebody. About an hour later she came back and told my wife what she had done, asked if we would be happy with it on the other side (which we would) and said don't be surprised to see someone out there soonish surveying it! She did say that they want people to be happy with what they provide.
The woman over the road also came out, saying its a bad position and she actually said all the boxes were badly located because the openreach engineers park in a way which makes it hard getting off her drive and they regularly have radios on which she says she can hear (tbh i haven't heard that). They are out there an awful lot though to be fair, which from my pov is no hardship.
So fingers crossed something may happen!
I know its extreme and may never happen but could you imagine if a child crossed there, got run over and died. It then transpires someone has complained before, it would cause them no end of problems and could mean that each box really does have to have proper planning, could cause them trouble over the whole country and who the f
k wants to be responsible for something like that, hence todays health and safety culture. Everyone wants to cover their arse!Also a couple of councils have said a flat no to any boxes at all, loosing potentially thousands of customers, im sure they wouldn't want local councillors getting involved potentially telling them no more boxes because they are a complete eyesore and are installed in poor locations.
On the other side of town there's another 3 badly located, an engineer told me about them, they aren't outside a house but are grouped together on a footpath, he says it does cause issues working on them because people cant get past.
My faith in them remains, everyone i have spoken to from bt or openreach and even sub contractors have all agreed its a silly position.
m3jappa said:
little update today:
Guys came and wired the box today, spoke to them and they agreed it was bad as well, he said it was dangerous and didn't like working on it because he's hidden behind a box on a corner. He phoned his boss (another contractor) but was told to carry on. He said they were on a price and the guys digging also would have been! He agreed it was put there for the easy dig and there was no reason at all why it couldn't go the other side except for the dig being a little bit harder.
Not long after a woman came along, I'm not sure on her role but its something to do with a specific component inside. She also thought it was really bad and potentially dangerous, someone said to me what if a child was waiting to cross standing beside the box , a car wouldn't see them and what if the kid walks out? A bit pc but true imo! i wouldn't want my daughter practicing crossing there tbh.
Anyway, the woman took a load of photos, emailed somebody. About an hour later she came back and told my wife what she had done, asked if we would be happy with it on the other side (which we would) and said don't be surprised to see someone out there soonish surveying it! She did say that they want people to be happy with what they provide.
The woman over the road also came out, saying its a bad position and she actually said all the boxes were badly located because the openreach engineers park in a way which makes it hard getting off her drive and they regularly have radios on which she says she can hear (tbh i haven't heard that). They are out there an awful lot though to be fair, which from my pov is no hardship.
So fingers crossed something may happen!
I know its extreme and may never happen but could you imagine if a child crossed there, got run over and died. It then transpires someone has complained before, it would cause them no end of problems and could mean that each box really does have to have proper planning, could cause them trouble over the whole country and who the fk wants to be responsible for something like that, hence todays health and safety culture. Everyone wants to cover their arse!
Also a couple of councils have said a flat no to any boxes at all, loosing potentially thousands of customers, im sure they wouldn't want local councillors getting involved potentially telling them no more boxes because they are a complete eyesore and are installed in poor locations.
On the other side of town there's another 3 badly located, an engineer told me about them, they aren't outside a house but are grouped together on a footpath, he says it does cause issues working on them because people cant get past.
My faith in them remains, everyone i have spoken to from bt or openreach and even sub contractors have all agreed its a silly position.
Sorry, no. I sympathise to some degree about its siting, but all this "what if a child ran out and they weren't seen because the cabinet was hiding them" is complete and utter nonsense, same as your earlier straw-clutching crap about not being able to see traffic approaching when turning out of the adjacent side road. People manage to get in and out just fine without ending up upside down in a ball of fire when there's a big Openreach tranny van parked there so arguing that the cabinet blocks the view of traffic is utter crap. You seem to be forgetting that there was a huge tree situated where the new cabinet is give or take a few feet and that was many times bigger in size. How did people manage? Guys came and wired the box today, spoke to them and they agreed it was bad as well, he said it was dangerous and didn't like working on it because he's hidden behind a box on a corner. He phoned his boss (another contractor) but was told to carry on. He said they were on a price and the guys digging also would have been! He agreed it was put there for the easy dig and there was no reason at all why it couldn't go the other side except for the dig being a little bit harder.
Not long after a woman came along, I'm not sure on her role but its something to do with a specific component inside. She also thought it was really bad and potentially dangerous, someone said to me what if a child was waiting to cross standing beside the box , a car wouldn't see them and what if the kid walks out? A bit pc but true imo! i wouldn't want my daughter practicing crossing there tbh.
Anyway, the woman took a load of photos, emailed somebody. About an hour later she came back and told my wife what she had done, asked if we would be happy with it on the other side (which we would) and said don't be surprised to see someone out there soonish surveying it! She did say that they want people to be happy with what they provide.
The woman over the road also came out, saying its a bad position and she actually said all the boxes were badly located because the openreach engineers park in a way which makes it hard getting off her drive and they regularly have radios on which she says she can hear (tbh i haven't heard that). They are out there an awful lot though to be fair, which from my pov is no hardship.
So fingers crossed something may happen!
I know its extreme and may never happen but could you imagine if a child crossed there, got run over and died. It then transpires someone has complained before, it would cause them no end of problems and could mean that each box really does have to have proper planning, could cause them trouble over the whole country and who the f
k wants to be responsible for something like that, hence todays health and safety culture. Everyone wants to cover their arse!Also a couple of councils have said a flat no to any boxes at all, loosing potentially thousands of customers, im sure they wouldn't want local councillors getting involved potentially telling them no more boxes because they are a complete eyesore and are installed in poor locations.
On the other side of town there's another 3 badly located, an engineer told me about them, they aren't outside a house but are grouped together on a footpath, he says it does cause issues working on them because people cant get past.
My faith in them remains, everyone i have spoken to from bt or openreach and even sub contractors have all agreed its a silly position.
You've gone full-on NIMBY.Lemming Train said:
Sorry, no. I sympathise to some degree about its siting, but all this "what if a child ran out and they weren't seen because the cabinet was hiding them" is complete and utter nonsense, same as your earlier straw-clutching crap about not being able to see traffic approaching when turning out of the adjacent side road. People manage to get in and out just fine without ending up upside down in a ball of fire when there's a big Openreach tranny van parked there so arguing that the cabinet blocks the view of traffic is utter crap. You seem to be forgetting that there was a huge tree situated where the new cabinet is give or take a few feet and that was many times bigger in size. How did people manage? You've gone full-on NIMBY.
Ok, bring your kids round and lets practice crossing the road there then? You've gone full-on NIMBY.Why was the tree removed?
While i don't like to exercise the opinion because i am generally anti health and safety its certainly possible.
Lets face it, no one in their right mind would actually be pleased with it out there. If it doesn't go it doesnt go and ill re do the hedge but tbh until then ill do my best to get it moved because the contractor was too f
king lazy to put it somewhere sensible.Btw it was actually 2 other people who said about a child crossing, putting that into my head. I think its a reasonable statement.
m3jappa said:
Ok, bring your kids round and lets practice crossing the road there then?
The kids would manage just fine because it's a complete non-issue.m3jappa said:
Why was the tree removed?
For the same reason that every other tree along that road was removed : council budget cuts that meant they could no longer afford to maintain them - something that is happening to tree-lined streets across the country.m3jappa said:
While i don't like to exercise the opinion because i am generally anti health and safety its certainly possible.
Lets face it, no one in their right mind would actually be pleased with it out there. If it doesn't go it doesnt go and ill re do the hedge but tbh until then ill do my best to get it moved because the contractor was too fking lazy to put it somewhere sensible.
That is fine and there's no issue with that. But trying to get them removed based on some spurious "my kids will get flattened because of where you've put the cabinet" and "I struggle to reverse off my driveway" reasoning is just nonsense. You know it and so does everybody else. Your complaint has absolutely nothing to do with child safety - that's just a pack of lies. Your only complaint is that your house doesn't look as posh and expensive to randoms driving down the road with data cabinets sited on the verge. That's just NIMBYism at its finest. You knew that there were cabs there when you bought the place and given the increasing demands for internet and higher speeds it was pretty much guaranteed that there were going to be additional cabs appearing in the future in order to handle the local demand. Even if you manage to get it moved by 20ft there's a very high chance that further cabs will be needed in the future as demand increases and guess where they'll be sited.... Lets face it, no one in their right mind would actually be pleased with it out there. If it doesn't go it doesnt go and ill re do the hedge but tbh until then ill do my best to get it moved because the contractor was too f
king lazy to put it somewhere sensible.
Just extend your hedge and be done with it. All this crap about being heartbroken and "we must think of the poor children" is becoming rather cringeworthy. There's a thread entitled 'First World problems' for this kind of thing fyi. Sorry for being rather blunt but you're really making a mountain out of a molehill over this.
Fair enough, maybe it is first world problems, I've had far worse real heartbreaking stuff in the past. We had to take our 3yr old to a&e last night after she screamed in pain, id rather have a hundred boxes and be homeless than her have something bad happen.
However why the fk do i spend my entire life worrying and pandering to my customers, staff, sub contractors, even passers by? Only for others to not give a st about their behaviour. Its not just the box its a behaviour i am seeing more and more, people and buisness just doesn't seem to give a flying fk about what they do, as long as they benefit then the rest can do one. Of course there are exceptions but its prevalent. The whole thing could have been avoided by taking a couple of hours longer to install. (confirmed by the 3 engineers and woman today).
Off the top of my head the council have i'm sure replanted trees, maybe they were too big to maintain i dont know, i do know that come the spring the council really do look after this part of road, it looks very pretty when driving down here imo. I remember hitting about 35 and suddenly thinking like an adult that the area looked really pleasant
Im not bothered about what passers by think, im bothered about what i think and i think it looks st, the same as anyone viewing in the future. I am very house proud, i have enjoyed renovating the place and i was looking forward to building the porch and doing a new drive, transforming it from looking pretty bland to quite nice. Now i almost cant be bothered, maybe thats an over reaction but i do feel like that.
On top of that i think it does cause a hazard. Even if you look at the street view from a particular position with the openreach van it looks like a picture you get in a hazard perception test
However why the f
k do i spend my entire life worrying and pandering to my customers, staff, sub contractors, even passers by? Only for others to not give a st about their behaviour. Its not just the box its a behaviour i am seeing more and more, people and buisness just doesn't seem to give a flying fk about what they do, as long as they benefit then the rest can do one. Of course there are exceptions but its prevalent. The whole thing could have been avoided by taking a couple of hours longer to install. (confirmed by the 3 engineers and woman today).Off the top of my head the council have i'm sure replanted trees, maybe they were too big to maintain i dont know, i do know that come the spring the council really do look after this part of road, it looks very pretty when driving down here imo. I remember hitting about 35 and suddenly thinking like an adult that the area looked really pleasant
Im not bothered about what passers by think, im bothered about what i think and i think it looks s
t, the same as anyone viewing in the future. I am very house proud, i have enjoyed renovating the place and i was looking forward to building the porch and doing a new drive, transforming it from looking pretty bland to quite nice. Now i almost cant be bothered, maybe thats an over reaction but i do feel like that.On top of that i think it does cause a hazard. Even if you look at the street view from a particular position with the openreach van it looks like a picture you get in a hazard perception test
m3jappa said:
However why the fk do i spend my entire life worrying and pandering to my customers, staff, sub contractors, even passers by? Only for others to not give a st about their behaviour. Its not just the box its a behaviour i am seeing more and more, people and buisness just doesn't seem to give a flying fk about what they do, as long as they benefit then the rest can do one. Of course there are exceptions but its prevalent. The whole thing could have been avoided by taking a couple of hours longer to install. (confirmed by the 3 engineers and woman today).
That's modern life in the UK. I wholeheartedly agree with you and have similar rants myself but, it is what it is k do i spend my entire life worrying and pandering to my customers, staff, sub contractors, even passers by? Only for others to not give a st about their behaviour. Its not just the box its a behaviour i am seeing more and more, people and buisness just doesn't seem to give a flying fk about what they do, as long as they benefit then the rest can do one. Of course there are exceptions but its prevalent. The whole thing could have been avoided by taking a couple of hours longer to install. (confirmed by the 3 engineers and woman today).
. People generally don't give a fk anymore and it's all me-me-me. Eventually you come to realise this yourself and see that people have been taking the piss out of your good nature and kindness for years with barely a 'thanks' nor any sign of genuine appreciation in return and you soon find yourself being much less willing to help people than you once were.Visibility splays are defines zones (not sight lines, but splayed areas) and something is either in it or it isn’t.
If the box is in it, and is outside of the permitted sizes then it should be moved because it won’t have highways agreement to be there, if it’s outside the zone, or within it but also within the size parameters then it’s nothin my to worry about.
If the box is in it, and is outside of the permitted sizes then it should be moved because it won’t have highways agreement to be there, if it’s outside the zone, or within it but also within the size parameters then it’s nothin my to worry about.
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