Graham Stuart, Member of Parliament for Beverley and Holderness, has chaired a meeting between MS3, the company installing telegraph poles in Hedon and Preston, Cllr Steve Gallant (SW Holderness, Lab) and East Riding of Yorkshire Council to try to find a solution that would work for residents.
In a meeting which saw a forthright exchange of views, Graham was able to get some clarity about the situation with the potential installation of telegraph poles in Hedon, which has seen significant numbers of objections lodged with the Council.
Cllr Gallant forcefully put forward the views of residents, including about conservation areas, alleged breaches of the Ofcom Code of Conduct and MS3 not making use of KCOM’s existing infrastructure.
Guy Miller, CEO of MS3, responded that fibre cables are permitted to be run from telegraph poles and that conservation areas will not see telegraph poles installed.
Furthermore, he raised concerning news that allegedly KCOM has put significant barriers to MS3 sharing KCOM’s infrastructure. Graham will be raising this with KCOM.
This issue is caused due to the unique nature of telecommunications around Hull, with an effective monopoly held by KCOM, rather than OpenReach. This means that companies like MS3, which seek to provide high-quality, low-cost broadband to third party providers, either use KCOM’s infrastructure or provide their own to open the broadband market to new players.
Mr Miller also highlighted that MS3 has significantly improved their FAQs and complaints procedures, following meetings with Cllr Gallant and others.
Beverley and Holderness MP Graham Stuart said: “I don’t want to see our streets unnecessarily cluttered with telegraph poles, and I want to see everyone have access to fast, affordable broadband.
“That’s why I met with MS3 and local representatives to get to the bottom of why these poles are going up in Hedon and Preston.
“I’m working with MS3 and KCOM to discover why poles were the chosen solution, and why KCOM and MS3 aren’t working together to improve broadband for everyone.”
Commenting, MS3 CEO Guy Miller said: “MS3 welcomes the input of Graham Stuart MP in helping us strike the correct balance between resident disruption and the need for competitively priced fibre broadband in his constituency.”
Cllr John Dennis said: “This ‘Telegraph Poles’ issue has been high on my agenda in recent days. It’s fairly obvious from the many calls and emails I have received that the proposal is very unpopular.
“South West Holderness residents quite rightly don’t want this invasion of their space to happen at all and prefer to see existing underground facilities being utilised wherever possible.
“In particular this is the case in our Conservation Areas which we want to protect to our utmost ability. Hopefully the town of Hedon and the village of Preston will not be seeing them erected in our central areas at all.
“We shall keep our eyes open and intervene if we think that rules and regulations are being breached or that MS3 promises are not being kept.
“Please let your Conservative Ward Members know if unwanted poles are appearing in the wrong locations. In some locations, eg if underground facilities are not available, they might have to be erected but we would want to keep the numbers to an acceptable level.”
