City Fibre cabinet installs must be delayed until a proper plan is in place

City Fibre cabinet installs must be delayed until a proper plan is in place - Cllr Ian Manning

Posted by Ian Manning | Updated 2019-10-19

City Fibre is a project to provide super fast broadband to homes in Cambridge. It started in the North of the City earlier this year, with a very agressive timetable of works to install cables under residental streets.

I've (Cllr Ian Manning) been working with officers to try and ensure the works are carried out in ways that don't unduly disrupt residents - many people have had serious issues with the work as it has continued.

Most recently there have been complaints from residents about the location of the cabinets that support the connections to houses, and I've been following this up - I'm now demanding a freeze on more installs & authorisation of cabinets until after officers have met to agree a proper plan and involve local Cllrs and residents in the locations of the same.

A number of locations of cabinets have risked either aking it impossible for residents to maintain their fences, and in more serious cases made it easy to jump over fences making residents feel insecure. Clearly there is a worry about obstruction of pa ements on top of this.

Many cabinet installations haven't been approved by the County Council. There are some basic criteria under which a cabinet could be approved:

1) Is the location ver an access point?
2) Is the pavement wide enough with the cabinet?
3) Is there at least a 100mm gap between the cabinet and property boundaries?

I'm working with officers to understand whether a cabinet location can be turned down even if it meets the criteria above. Further I'm calling for:

1) A blanket policy of no formal authorisations until City Fibre have met with officers to agree a full plan of cabinet locations from this point on.

2) City Fibre should be supply plans of proposed box locations in advance of installation. These plans should go to the lead opposition members and chair/vice as well as the local member in additional to the relevant highways officer - which some deadline for objections/not.

3) A full list of box loctions showing their approval status and who approved these in the cases they were approved.

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