One man's row with BT halts broadband for village

Raymond Moreton, an 86-year-old from Yelverton in Norfolk has become so annoyed and frustrated with BT that he has blocked them from upgrading a junction box in his garden - halting plans to bring high speed broadband to his neighbours.

The box is 20 feet inside the boundary of Raymond's property, on his lawn. When he first moved to the house in 1998, he says that he didn't mind the occasional visits from engineers.

However, things first started to go awry in April 2014, when BT wanted to upgrade the box, to allow more of his neighbours to receive high speed internet. According to The Sun, they wrote to Raymond, offering him £758 in return for letting them upgrade the box. He refused, and they built another box elsewhere in the village.

So he was shocked in September last year when a BT worker arrived and started digging a trench from the road to the box - through his garden. He objected, and has been in a stand-off with the company ever since. The Telegraph reported that every time the company arrives at his property to work on the box, he stands in their way, demanding that they leave.

BT told the press that there was an ongoing consultation between the homeowner and Norfolk Highways over who owns the land the box is sitting on. A council spokesperson added that once the boundary had been established, it would help bring the row to a conclusion.

Is he right?

It's easy to see why Raymond may be unhappy. Nobody likes the idea of stumbling across an engineer digging up your lawn - especially when you specifically rejected a £758 deal to let them do it.

However, when you have a BT box on your land, it will either be because that part of the land was owned by Highways when the box was installed, or because whoever lived in the house at the time signed a Wayleave, which allowed the box to be built. This will usually be in return for a one-off payment,

The investigation with Norfolk Highways and the council is doubtless designed to establish what permission was in place when this box was built, and what rights it gives BT now. Unfortunately for Raymond, there's every chance that they have the right to upgrade the box.

He will then be faced with a choice of letting them do the work or fighting to the bitter end through the courts with absolutely no guarantee of success, and the very real risk of a huge legal bill.

What would you do? Let us know in the comments.