When will digging up the road for broadband in Eastbourne end?

How much longer are the residents of Eastbourne going to be subjected to the inconsiderate levels of disruption caused by the City Fibre and Lightning Fibre contractors, throughout the town?

I appreciate that an infrastructure project of this size will always cause some level of disruption, but is East Sussex County Council actually monitoring their work and holding them to account, and making sure the disruption is proportionate and that their reparations and footpath reinstatements are acceptable?

Evidently not.

The contractors have now cut through my phone and broadband supply not once, but twice!

On both occasions without apology, just blaming the fact that the cables were ‘not as deep as they had expected’; they certainly didn’t learn from their first mistake, did they?

On the second occasion, I contacted City Fibre’s ‘customer service’ team to complain and ask for compensation as I was unable to use my services for two days. I was promised a response within three days.

After a week I had heard nothing, so I tried again, only to be incorrectly advised that someone had tried to contact me and that I had refused to speak with them!

The operative also advised me that ‘it was not City Fibre’s policy to pay compensation following such incidents’.

Customer service? Lip service, more like, and absolutely no accountability.

Now, just a couple of weeks later, Lightning Fibre has arrived in our road, and are today digging up the very same sections of footpath again, to lay their own cables, and have spilt oil all over the road in doing so.

Surely East Sussex County Council has some responsibility to co-ordinate these licences in the interests of its residents, to try to minimise disruption?

Again, clearly just not interested.

Both of these companies have shown a total disregard for Eastbourne’s residents, and a complete lack of accountability for their poor standards of work.

I wouldn’t trust them to deliver a newspaper, let alone high speed broadband services!