Stubborn Pensioner Condemns Village To Slow Broadband Over Junction Box In His Garden

A sleepy English village have found themselves condemned to a life of slow Internet because of one extremely stubborn neighbour.

Pensioner Raymond Moreton is outright refusing to allow BT engineers to work on the telephone junction box outside his home in Yelverton, Norfolk, because he claims they are “invading his land”.

Despite BT offering to pay £758 to install a new box Mr Moreton, 86, is standing firm, leaving his neighbours stuck with slow broadband speeds.

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.”

Box: BT offered the Mr Moreton £758 to install a new cabinet (SWNS)

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, added: "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.”

The cabinet lies six metres from the boundary of Mr Moreton’s property and there is no barrier preventing BT Openreach gaining access.

He believes a new box would devalue his property and he now refuses engineers to work on it.

He said: ”(Whenever they arrive) I go and stand in front of them and won’t let them work on it.

Work: BT engineers have been refused access to the box (SWNS)

“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.”

Mr Moreton claims that as a result of the dispute, BT has even tried to convince him his Land Registry documents outlining the border are incorrect.

This means that they do have access to his land, something he disputes.

Property: The pensioner insists the box is on his land (SWNS)

The feud has even led to the police being called, although no arrests have been made.

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.”

The internet download speed in the village is around 2.7MBPS, compared to the UK average of 22.8MBPS.

Top pic: SWNS