How To Remove A Telephone Pole From Your Garden

A telephone pole is an eyesore in the garden. We offer you all the advice you need to go about removing it.

A telephone pole must be removed by the company that owns it. The challenge involves identifying the right party and convincing them to take the pole down.

Few people adore a telephone pole standing in the middle of their garden. Our guide will help you to determine ownership of the pole and how to start the process of getting the pole removed.

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How To Get Rid Of A Telephone Pole In Your Yard

Few people love the sight of a telephone pole looming over their rose bushes. Let’s be honest, it ruins the entire look of a well-kept garden and home. Having a pole on your property might also lower its value when you try to sell it. Most people are also concerned about safety issues. What if it topples over onto your home or family?

Those who wish to remove a telephone pole from their yard must follow certain steps if they wish to be successful. These mainly involve:

1. Making sure that you are dealing with a telephone pole and not another kind of utility (like power).
2. Identifying the company or business that owns the telephone pole.
3. Entering into a conversation to have the pole removed.

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What Kind Of Pole Am I Dealing With?

Once you know what to look for, it is quite easy to tell the two main poles apart. When you have a pole in your garden you are either looking at a power pole or a telephone pole. Here are the main differences.

• Telephone pole - The wires are often touching, messy-looking and going in all directions. Although there can be a single, neat line as well.
• Power pole - The lines never touch and run in parallel lines. There might also be additional attachments to the pole, like insulators.

I Have A Telephone Pole. Now What?

Establish Who Owns The Pole

To start the process of getting right of the eyesore in your garden, it is essential to find out who owns the telephone pole. There are several companies with poles all over the UK. The good news is that most telephone poles carry a mark that identifies ownership and this should help you to find the right company.

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Contact The Company

Once you are sure that you have the right company, you can call or email them and explain your situation to them. While you might be upset or frustrated with the situation, always try and stay courteous to whomever you are talking to. It might just make the person on the other end go the extra mile to solve the problem on your behalf - you never know.

Establish When The Engineer Will Visit

Chances are that the telephone pole in your garden is not a dead stick. In other words, it is being used in the communications network of your area. The telephone company needs to send an engineer out to your property to assess the situation. They will probably try and see how crucial the pole is to the local network and make a decision based on that.

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When Will The Pole Be Removed?

This is hard to say. The main problem happens when the engineer finds that the pole is essential or important to the local network and should not really be moved (or it will require a lot of readjustments to cover the gap left by the removal of this particular pole). Once that happens, you might find a long delay or face something worse - the company’s refusal to remove it.

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What If The Company Refuses To Move The Pole?

When this happens, first things first. Never take matters into your own hands. Removing or attempting to remove a telephone pole without the relevant permission is illegal. You can be held liable for any damages to the pole and wires and repairs the telephone company has to do as a result of your actions.

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If a telephone company refuses to remove a pole from your garden, there are basically just two options left for you to do. Neither choices are particularly fun. The first is to accept the fact that the telephone pole is going nowhere and that you will just have to live with it. This is perhaps the last thing that you want to hear but letting things be is an option.

Your second choice is to start with legal proceedings. Legal action could force the telephone company to remove the pole from your garden. But there is something that you should be aware of and that is to walk into this with a realistic outlook of your chances. By the time the telephone company has notified you of their refusal, they had probably first consulted their legal team to strengthen their case. You are not the first or last person to dispute a telephone pole on private property and the company usually gets its way because it has the law on its side in most cases.

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Will I Get Billed For Legal Proceedings?

That depends on whether you win or lose and which company you are dealing with. The norm is for the losing party to pay all legal costs and when a private person takes on a big business, you could face enormous costs should you lose. If your bid is unsuccessful, there is a small chance, however, that some companies might not slap you with their costs (but do not count on it).

Will I Get Billed For The Pole’s Removal?

Once again, there are no hard and fast rules. But you need to prepare yourself for the possibility that you might get saddled with some of the companies expenses after they remove the telephone pole from your garden. What those costs might be is hard to say. But once you are notified that the company is willing to remove the pole, do yourself a favour and find out what costs you are liable for - so that there are no nasty surprises!

A Summary On How To Remove A Telephone Pole From Your Garden

• A telephone pole looks ugly and poses safety risks on your property.
• There are steps you need to follow to start the removal process.
• These steps involve identifying the type of pole, who owns it, and then contacting the company with a request to remove the pole.
• The process is likely to involve a financial aspect that you need to prepare for.
• Expenses can include paying for a legal battle when the company refuses to remove the pole or to pay for certain things when the company agrees to remove it.