Cables from old cable tv companies in garden, can they be removed?

[Linnet]

In my front garden there is gravel. Years ago me and the house next door had telewest cable tv and the wires were placed from the box out on the pavement through my garden and connected through the walls into respective houses.

Telewest no longer exists, it's been taken over by Virgin Media, I haven't had cable Tv for years as I changed to Sky. The people next door moved out and there have been a few different people living there over the years and ones there now also have Sky.

These cables, encased in green tubing, are still in my garden just under the surface of the gravel, and the wires feed into the walls of my house and the house next door.

I would like to have these cables removed from my garden and the box that is still on my wall in my living room. We are considering monoblocking our front garden for a driveway and if these cables are still there I'm not sure if we can go ahead.

I'm planning on phoning virgin media, once I find a number for them, to see what they say but I wondered if anyone else had ever had this situation and what you did? Would they have to come out and remove them or can I get someone to do it?

I did this myself once, a long time ago. Never even thought of asking permission. Was that naughty of me? We lived there for years afterward and never had any problem.

The cables belong to Virgin, and I expect you have an obligation not to damage them. They do offer quite good deals, and it may be worth keeping the cable in case you want a cheap pone and broadband in future.

They are always often fitted in a very shoddy way, lying on the garden or scarcely buried. If you are fond of gardening you could dig a deeper trench and bury the green conduit (it is usually flexible and will stretch a bit) more deeply, or maybe the paving layers would do it when they are preparing the site, it might be a normal job for them.

I have a feeling Virgin won't do any work if there is no money in it for them. AFAIK there are no regulations, like there are for gas, electricity and water depths.

I'd like them to be gone completely to be honest.

the people next door were telling me at the weekend that they are thinking of moving. If they sell up and the new people want to have Virgin media it means that virgin would be entitled to access to my garden for the cables and I'd much rather, if that were the case, that virgin installed the cables through next doors garden.

I realise that this is a bit hypothetical at the moment but it is a real possibility.