Terminally ill Hull woman joins protest against broadband pole plans

A terminally ill woman says she is having to spend her final days fighting plans to install a telegraph pole outside her home.

Debbie Andrews, who has cancer, is among several residents unhappy at proposals by communications company MS3 to put up brodband masts in Hedon, near Hull, East Yorkshire.

The 54-year-old was told in October last year that she may have only 12 months to live.

She said: "The pole will be be the first thing I see when I look through my bedroom window and I spend a lot of time in there because of my illness.

"I look out and I think I don't want it to be the last thing I see out there. I can't sleep, this is taking it out of me."

Debbie's husband Dennis, 58, said: "It's not fair, the government ought to say, 'yes you can do this but you have to use underground cables'."

Mr and Mrs Andrews, who have three grown-up children and have lived in their home for 24 years, joined a demonstration of hundreds of people outside Hedon Town Council.

Representatives from MS3 were booed on their way to meet councillors inside.

Protesters are calling for a change in the law which allows communications companies to bypass normal planning regulations in order to speed up the process of providing broadband.

Chief executive Guy Miller said: "MS3, alongside other network constructors, the local council and MPs have been working on a voluntary charter to ensure best practice and minimise disruption."

'We have got no power at all'

The protest in Hedon came a week after residents in a street in Hessle, East Yorkshire, successfully blocked the installation of poles by the same firm, claiming it did not have the permission to erect them for overhead cables.

MS3 said it was legally permitted to install infrastructure, but had agreed to postpone that work for 28 days.

Cllr Colin Billany, of Hedon Town Council, said: "We have got no power at all to go against the regulations because these poles don't need planning permission.

Mr Miller said his company could use existing cables and poles owned by Hull's main provider KCOM, but would not be able to offer customers competitive deals.

"MS3’s priority is to bring true fibre competition to Hull when people need it most – now,during the cost-of-living crisis," he said.

"It's the government who says for infrastructure for communications you don't go through the normal planning laws, so we're stuck unless they change the law."

A spokesperson for KCOM said: "Where new providers are installing poles it’s entirely their own commercial choice and not because they have not been able to gain access to our infrastructure.

"We sympathise with local residents who are having unpopular poles installed in their streets but unfortunately that’s the decision of other providers and theirs alone. Other providers could do as KCOM has done and invest millions into building their own underground network but have chosen not to do so.“