Virgin Cable 'Thrown' in my front Garden

[GardenCableman]

Hi was just looking for some advice regarding a neighbours cable which has been literarily thrown in my garden. When we moved in there was some heavily overgrown bushes by the fence of which when removed we found this thrown inside the bush. Anyway we're now looking to fix up the front garden and obviously want the cable installed properly I.E buried and not going over the brick wall which I plan to rebuild.

We are not Virgin customers and our neighbour doesn't seem to care how slap dash his internet cable into his property is. What can we do about this in regards to getting virgin to install it properly as I'm concerned if I bury it and its damaged virgin will want to come out and dig my front garden up. besides the way it enters my property is OVER the fallen wall at the front of my property which we want to rebuild and it is obstructing that.

We've tried contacting Virgin Media however without an account number its proven futile attempting call them and an attempt at sending a letter to contact them has also come up with nothing. I have no problem with the cable crossing my garden but this is cowboy level installation.

[Andrew-G]

Without a duly authorised "wayleave" (which is singularly unlikely to exist for a single domestic install of this type) VM have no rights to put a cable across your property.  It'll be a source of potential future trouble with your planned works, and possibly after that if the cable gets damaged (eg by a spade or simply age-related degradation).  The only way round this is for VM to remove the cable altogether and do the neighbour's connection properly and across their garden, as they should have done in the first place.  Even if you're easy going, stand on your rights and have VM remove the cable.

Forum staff should be able to get this sorted for you.

[Ayisha_B]

Hi @GardenCableman 👋,

Welcome to our Community Forums and thanks for your post.

I would like to take a closer look into this so will pop you a PM to confirm some details first. 

Speak soon!

[GardenCableman]

Although now the cable has bee buried, its only sitting about 5 cm below the soil and I'm now left with this up against my wall. (see attached Picture)

I requested to Virgin the possibility of using nearby overhead lines as this is how our Fibre enters our property. I'm really not happy with how this has been left and intend on renovating my garden soon with new turf and a patio which I'm concerned In may end up catching the cable as its buried so shallowly in the soil.

[Reece_MH]

Hi GardenCableman,

Thanks for providing an update on this, and I'm sorry to hear you're still unhappy with the work performed. Regarding the overhead lines, this is physically not possible for our services and all cabling would remain underground through ducting. You can read more on this, here.

Please be aware, the standard depth for our cable digging is 1-6 inches under the ground. This can vary with each property/cabling job.

I can see you're currently in PM with another member of our team, and rest assured, they'll be able to continue assisting you from there.

Cheers,

[g0akc]

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@GardenCableman wrote:

I requested to Virgin the possibility of using nearby overhead lines as this is how our Fibre enters our property. 

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I don't believe VM use any overhead cabling and they won't have any permission to use Openreach poles or plant.  Some other operators including newer fibre companies do (around here City Fibre are using overhead and (BT) Openreach poles but their own ducts. Various ISPs use City Fibre including Talk Talk, Vodafone and Zen).

Presumably your own connection is with an Openreach or another fibre operator but that's pretty much irrelevant.

The VM cabling policy is shown here 

FWIW I believe the depth is far too shallow.  I used to work in the industry and the policy then was a depth of 300mm or at least a spades depth.  Deeper in the street.

When VM installed our cable I insisted they put it in a bit deeper, under a graveled area.  They advised they only allow 20 minutes!  I was going to dig a deeper trench myself but they turned up to do the pre-pull unexpectedly.

See if you can get an area manager round as that does look a mess.