Hope on horizon for villagers in Addlethorpe left without broadband for 13 days?

Roger Dawson of Addlethrpe contacted Lincolnshire World to raise awareness about the situation, blaming Lincolnshire County Council (LCC) for the ‘unnacceptable delays’.

Mr Dawson wanted to know why it took LCC five days to approve a temporary traffic management permit when restoring broadband was deemed an ‘urgent’ situation.

We contacted LCC, who explained they had not received the request from Openreach until July 17 – and in any case because it was an urgent matter they did not need a permit to start work.

However, the good news is, LCC have been told by Openreach work would be completed by Friday.

Clearly, it has ben a frustrating few days for residents. Mr Dawson said in a letter to LCC: “This outage is continuing to cause considerable losses and distress to the residents and businesses of Addlethorpe and the surrounding area.

“Considering the dependence of customers on broadband services, the five day delay by LCC Highways in issuing the traffic management permit is, in my view, totally unacceptable.

“It is my understanding that an application for a traffic management permit due to a widespread loss of broadband services is considered by

LCC Highways to be in the "urgent" category, and that there is also a Linconshire Permit Scheme that covers applications by utility companies such as Outreach.

“In view of the unacceptable delay in issuing thenecessary traffic management permit, kindly advise whether the time taken to issue the permit in this case complies with your policy and performance standards, and if so, what needs to be done to enable more timely permitting inin such circumstances.”

Ashley Behan, Street Works and Permitting Manager at LCC said he was surprised to hear that Openreach have placed liability on LCC for delaying this repair.

“Openreach applied for an immediate permit on 17th July, which was granted by LCC,” he said. “They requested an extension to their permit on 22nd July (to run until 30th July) which was also granted.

“A statutory utility company, such as Openreach, has a legal right to work in the highway under Section 41 of the New Roads and Street Works Act (NRSWA) 1991 and this cannot be unreasonably refused by LCC. In the case of loss of customer supply, Openreach has

a legal right to begin work in the highway without prior approval from LCC, as happened in this case. LCC has at no time delayed or refused permission for them to undertake these works.

“On 17th July, we were approached by Openreach who requested a meeting to discuss traffic management at the location, as their team felt they required this to complete the repairs. It was suggested by LCC that an emergency road closure was put in place on Church

Lane, Addlethorpe, and that this should take place immediately to complete the repairs. We have since reached out to Openreach who have advised that works are progressing, and we understand these will be completed tomorrow (Friday).

“As a Council who works collaboratively with statutory utility providers and understands the importance of the vital services they provide, it is disappointing to see Openreach have put blame on LCC. The Street Works Charter we have in place for roadworks in

Lincolnshire, remains the only collaborative charter of its type and we hope to continue to improve situations such as this through its objectives. Openreach remains the only major utility provider operating in Lincolnshire so far that has not signed the charter - however, our door remains open should they wish to reconsider.”

Lincolnshire World has also contacted Openreach for a comment.