Southport broadband engineers' work stopped by protests

Protestors halted the construction of 9m telegraph poles in Southport

Broadband engineers had to abandon installing new telegraph poles after a stand-off with residents.

Police were called out after people living in a Southport neighbourhood took to the streets to prevent the work going ahead.

Some residents stood on the spots where the new 9m poles were meant to go into the ground.

Openreach has said halting the scheme would "deprive thousands" of faster internet.

People from the Wennington Road, Griffiths Drive and Chester Avenue area of the town said they wanted faster broadband, but thought the poles would damage wildlife, were unsightly, and less effective than underground cables.

The protest on Wennington Road on Saturday saw some residents park cars in nearby roads to block Openreach vans from getting there.

Openreach said it would press on with the upgrade, which it is allowed to carry out without the approval of local council planners

Conservative Southport MP Damien Moore wrote to residents to say that "unfortunately, Openreach has now published a response confirming they will continue with the installation of aerial fibre optic cabling".

The letter added Openreach had said it would be too expensive and disruptive to put the cables underground.

Local man Pete Nilsson told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS): "The ongoing activities of Openreach will be monitored in the area and further protests deployed as necessary."

He added residents would "not back down" to what he described as Openreach's "bullying" approach.

Openreach has said that Southport has much less full-fibre broadband coverage than most areas in the UK, adding the "existing copper network is increasingly unreliable".

Merseyside Police said the protest had passed off peacefully.

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