A stubborn
OAP has been blamed by his neighbours for condemning them to 'painfully
slow' broadband because he won't let engineers access a junction box in
his garden.
Every
time BT workmen turn up at Raymond Moreton's house he physically stops
them from accessing the box, which needs to be upgraded, claiming it is
on his land.
Despite
BT offering to pay £758 to install a new box, Mr Moreton, 86, claims he
has been forced to resort to the extreme measures because they have
'invaded his land' and said the work would devalue his house by £50,000.
His
other gripes include the amount of traffic such work would cause around
his property while he claimed his garden would get 'trampled' by
engineers.
But
bemused neighbours in the sleepy village of Yelverton, Norfolk, say
they don't understand why he is resisting the work and have complained
of 'extremely slow' internet in the village.
Pensioner
Michael Wooldridge, 79, lives in the same street and is one of the few
people who has managed to get connected to another box.
He said: 'He has got a bee in his bonnet and he won't let them in.
'I
don't understand what his beef is. As far as I understand it they just
need to go into the box and and changes a few things over.
'If they've been parking on his lawn I could understand but as far as I can see it looks fine.'
The internet download speed in the village is around 2.7MBPS while the average UK speed is 22.8MBPS.
Mr
Wooldridge said he believed around three houses in the street were
connected to another box and had high speed internet but the rest were
still stuck until the improvements are carried out.
One mother, who lives in the road and did not wish to be named, said: 'Our internet is extremely slow.
'I am currently trying to to complete a degree and it is really difficult to do with the internet like this.
'We
rang BT recently to say we wanted to go on to BT Infinity because it's
much faster but they said they were unable to do it because the demand
is too high in the area.
'I've spoken to my neighbours since and they've said it's because Raymond is not letting them install a BT box on his garden.
'I think
older people might not really understand what it is and because they
might not use the internet as much so they don't see the benefits.
'Something
needs to be done though because the internet is painfully slow here. My
children are now grown up and they need it to do their homework but it
constantly cuts out.'
A
man living in the same street as a stubborn pensioner who is refusing
to allow BT engineers to install high speed broadband says the situation
is getting ridiculous.
Handyman Steven Oliver, 42, and his wife Julie, 41, live a few doors down from Raymond Moreton.
He said: 'We have been trying for a month and a half to get fibre optic internet.
'He (Mr Moreton) keeps standing in front of them and not letting BT install anything. I am not very happy about it.
'My wife uses it because she works for a printing company and sometimes she has to use the internet at night.
'It's so slow that we have to stop using everything else so it doesn't cut out.
'He lets them in to work on the phone lines but he won't let them install the fibre optic cables.
'I
had a friend who moved from one house to another one in village and
found out that his new house didn't have high speed internet. I've asked
BT to get their lawyers involved.'
The cabinet
lies six metres from the boundary of Mr Moreton's property and there is
no barrier preventing BT Openreach gaining access.
When
he and his wife Marion, 85, bought the £400,000 detached bungalow in
1998 they were happy for engineers to make infrequent visits to the box.
But
when broadband came to the village in April 2014, BT wrote to Mr
Moreton offering him £758 to install a new broadband cabinet on his
property.
The
former army aircraft mechanic refused on the basis it would knock
£50,000 of the its value and cause additional traffic to build outside
his home.
BT agreed and built a box in a nearby quieter lane, leaving Mr Moreton in the belief the issue had finally been resolved.
But
in September last year, he was horrified to discover a BT Openreach
workman digging a trench from the road to the box in his garden.
This caused
him to take his drastic action and he has not allowed them to get into
the box since, despite them turning up several times a week at one
point.
He said: '(Whenever they arrive) I go and stand in front of them and won't let them work on it.
'I feel that they are invading my personal property.
'It's six metres inside my property and I don't want people trampling all over my garden several times a week.
'One day they came with seven vans and parked all down the road. They've even parked on my drive.
'The whole thing has caused my wife and I immense stress and I thought I was going to drop down dead at one point.'
The feud has even led to the police being called, although no arrests have been made.
Some
houses, including Mr Woolridge's have been able to connect to the other
box but BT says it is unable to bring high speed broadband to everyone
without doing work on the box in Mr Moreton's garden.
A
spokesman for BT Openreach said: 'We understand that there is ongoing
consultation between Mr Moreton and Norfolk Highways, and we will assess
the situation once the public boundary has been clearly defined.'
He
added: 'We do need to do some underground work in the area to enable
more people to be able to get high speed broadband, so we need the
public boundary clarified before we can do that.'
A
spokesman for Norfolk County Council said: 'We're confident that the
issue can be settled soon, with an agreed boundary line established
which will assist Mr Moreton in identifying if any existing apparatus is
on his land or not.'
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