Ripley residents object to Openreach cabinet on safety grounds
A sixty name petition has been handed to BT to get some cabinets re-sited at the junction of Leamington Street and Nottingham Road due to a new cabinet obscuring their view as they exit onto Nottingham Road.
The Ripley and Heanor News which has covered the issue, helpfully shows the junction, and reading the article the first thought is that the FTTC cabinet has been poorly located, but from looking on Google Streetview one can see that the actual issue is more complex. The FTTC cabinet is situated further down the road away from the the junction, the problem cabinet is actually one that has been present for many years providing telephone service, but with a new shell added as part of the FTTC upgrades. This new shell is taller and wider, and thus now obscures what appears to have always being a difficult junction to exit from if residents really had to watch for traffic in the gap between a telegraph pole and a brick wall.
Moving the main telephone cabinet will prove difficult, short of reverting to the older small cabinet shell, or Openreach negotiating a small corner of someones garden there are very few options.
Comments
A couple of speed humps parallel with the new fibre cabinet, problem solved.
The cabinet is not higher than the wall. So it's the 10" gap behind the pole they are complaining about.
There are only a handful of houses down that road, regardless of the cabinets ive found it awkward to pull out of there anyway.
You would think the residents would be thankful of an FTTC cab within 200 metres of their house!
@Ripley The takeaway opposite, and the bend in the road would make if not easy even if the pole, wall and cab were not there.
Its not the FFTC cab that is the issue, it is now the phone cab. Cost of moving that will be large and disruptive and potential road works dangerous
The road network is full of junctions where extreme caution is required. If these people cannot negotiate this one then it reinforces the argument for retesting drivers.
@Andrew. It seems Ripley lives on, or at least goes down so has to exit that side road?
Yeah my friend lives down that street. Its a tricky junction to pull out of full stop.
But you would expect the residents would just ask the council to install a curved mirror on the other side of the street, rather than complaining about the BT equipment which we are lucky to have.
wonder which is oldest, the original cabinate position or the tarmacked road the residents live on, wouldn't surprise me if that 'road' started life as a smaller un-adopted dirt track.
Notice the row of heavy duty JRC lids near the cab, it would have been cheaper to have fitted JUF6's on the pavement then a row of JRC's, I'd suggest that is exactly what the GPO did but someone at the council decided it would be nice to allow the residents to drive all the way to their houses so adopted their private road/track, widened it, BT was forced to upgrade the foot-way boxes to JRC's and now the cab sits alot closer to the road then was intended.
I would agree that a complete cab uplift and reposition next to the FTTC cab would be a good idea, the council and residents can split the bill.
When BT Openreach intend doing something like this they should apply to the district council for planning permission, then all these issues can be discussed BEFORE installation. In my area (Huntingdon) BT Openreach did apply, but as they did it after the event it was pointless!
If they don't want FTTC, take it away from the selfish bastards. I live a bit down the road from Ripley and would love FTTC, move it here.
Hey, I bought the old post office just down the road from there. I can see the cabinet from my new place. I have a post box on my property, and there is just a nice spot for a new cabinet, they can move it there if they like lol. I'm due for fibre install on the 14th August, been waiting ages, cos BT are so busy apparently.
If Ripley doesn't want the cabinet could I PLEASE have it? I'm less than a mile from the Olympic Stadium and can't get Infinity!
"Posted by Wyton about 2 hours ago
When BT Openreach intend doing something like this they should apply to the district council for planning permission, then all these issues can be discussed BEFORE installation. In my area (Huntingdon) BT Openreach did apply, but as they did it after the event it was pointless!"
why apply when you have an act of parliament...
If it is a road safety issue, petition the council to install traffic lights. They would only be activated when a car triggered the road or proximity sensors when exiting the road, disruption to the main traffic flow would be minimal. The cost would probably be less than moving the copper cab, it would be a proper solution and could even save someones life.
I was passing an old cab that has just had it's FTTC twin installed and an engineer had the old one open. He said it would need reshelling in order to fit the two new 100 pair cables in as there was no spare space. So they may not be able to revert to the smaller one.