Do you live in Northern Ireland by any chance? We have had the same problem today with contractors acting on behalf of Virgin Media laying a cable on our land. They appeared to be guessing where the maintained/adopted roadside ends. I highlighted that I thought they were inside our boundary and was going to dig out the Land Register map (country road with no footpath and were actively avoiding digging on the road surface). They initially claimed they could come 1m into our property anyway. They did also later admit that if it was private land then it was their fault. I wish they had stopped working and stopped ruining the look of our driveway until I confirmed exactly where our boundary is.
I spoke to a person from the Department of Infrastructure, Divisional Lands Office who looked at our boundaries on a Land Registry map and concluded they had laid the cable on our land not on land maintained or adopted by them (it is our land right up to the edge of the road). We have quite a large frontage and also own the paddock next door so there are now several metres of cable running along our entire property frontage. For the avoidance of doubt, we did not give permission for the cable to be laid there.
Not only were we not asked in advance for permission, the contactor admitted that no one on the road was advised the work would take place. I was informed that normally they do give notice to householders but this time they did not. It was a shock when I spotted them digging up our driveway this morning. The contractors have been on our land as trespassers and is there is currently a continuing act of trespass on our land while the cable remains there. We also have an awful looking tarmac patch about a foot from the end of our driveway running the whole length across it.
I also spoke to the local council planning department who checked and confirmed that they were unaware of any work/no planning permission granted outside our house for cable laying. Therefore, the work must be being carried out under permitted development were they do need to apply to the council. The chap did highlight that if the cable was on our private property then there would be an issue.
Rang our solicitors firm today but was advised they are all working from home and it could be a day or two before they ring back. Hopefully will get speaking to them tomorrow. The contractor is going to speak to their legal people as well and will be in touch next week.
I tried several times to phone and also chat online to Virgin Media today and it was incredibly difficult, e.g. the phone was be cut off after a long wait period and the person I was chatting to online, who appeared to be in a different time zone, gave me an international rate 00353 number for Virgin Media Ireland to phone telling me I had contacted the UK……..last time I checked NI was still in the UK. He insisted that I need to speak to the Virgin Media Ireland. Rang the international number to the Republic were an automated message said the wait time was 15 minutes. I hung up.
I have had one hell of a day and I will certainly not be becoming a customer of Virgin Media!
