UK Power Networks and a potentially huge bill

[NCOneDayOnly]

Sorry - it’s a long one!

Wondering if anyone has any similar experience with this issue I’m having with UK Power Networks and their choice of anchor point on my property for my electricity supply.

My house was built in the mid-1920s and the electricity supply comes off a pole on the opposite side of the unadopted road and is anchored to my unstable chimney stack.

i bought the house five years ago and this wasn’t picked up on the original survey - largely because the surveyor was utterly crap (I ended up being reimbursed the cost of the survey, plus a small compensatory amount because he also missed the fact there was no lintel supporting a flat roof over a wide span of patio doors).

I’m now looking at removing the chimney stack which only goes into the loft, with nothing below it, as the rest of the stack was removed god knows how many years ago. The remaining portion of the stack sits on two concrete pads supported by rafters in the loft.

Anyway, I asked UK Power Networks (UKPN) to come and take a look to see about re-siting their infrastructure.

Shockingly, and despite the fact that it was they (or their precursor organisation) who installed the supply to the chimney stack in the first place, told me the work would set ME back between £9,000 to £15,000.

I argued that it wasn’t MY decision (nor, presumably, the decision of any previous owners of my house) where to site electrical infrastructure but they remained unmoved.

I asked what would happen if, during a storm, the entire chimney stack collapsed and left a live electrical cable arcing in the middle of the road and they said they’d simply come and ‘make safe’ the cable but not reattach it safely to my property - therefore leaving me without electricity which I didn’t think was legal - because;

1. UKPN believes the cost for re-siting the supply is entirely on me.

2. I should keep my chimney stack in good repair - this I totally agree with - and I do/have maintained it since moving in, but I can’t physically touch any part of UKPN’s cable, brackets, bolts etc and they’re currently in danger of coming away from crumbling brickwork which no amount of repair work, titting around without actually replacing the bricks that the infrastructure is actually attached to, is going to solve.

3. the road will need to be closed for the work to take place. This would inconvenience maybe twelve cars a day and is a bit of a moot point, but the biggest issue is;

4. UKPN say they can’t use the existing pole on the other side of the road because the cable would then sit too low on the roof of my property (a bungalow) to enable tall vehicles to pass beneath. This means I would need an entirely new pole placed in my front garden. There is already a pole sited on the boundary of my property but, apparently, this can’t be used (not sure why, I’ll have to revisit UKPN’s comments to see if any information was offered on that score).

I should also point out, here, that my next door neighbour’s supply comes off the pole over the road and sits ‘too low’ under UKPN’s current policy but, when the UKPN surveyor saw it, he looked horrified and then said; ‘I’m going to pretend I didn’t see that’. I suspect my neighbour did it himself before removing his own chimney stack because it’s a bit like the Wild West around where I live in terms of planning rules!

5. Finally, UKPN say that they now NEVER site supply on a chimney stack and haven’t done so for a very long time.

The crux of my argument, though, with UKPN is that this infrastructure belongs to THEM and they have deemed that my chimney is unsafe and the electrical supply should be re-sited to an alternative part of my property. I cannot do this work myself or hire an alternative contractor to do it (nor would I want to).

UKPN say they ‘inherited’ this infrastructure and, I think, that’s the main thrust of their argument for not undertaking the work at their own expense. BUT; I don’t see why I should have to pay to have it re-sited when neither I, nor any former owner of the house, got a choice of where to site it in the first place.

Any similar experiences would be interesting to hear. I’m going to make another representation to UKPN to see if I can appeal to their better judgement.

I read of an interesting case recently of a house on a 15 year old new build estate. The owner wanted to install an EV charge point on their driveway. However because a large number of properties already had EV charge points and the fact that the electricity wires for supplying that estate were never built with excess capacity needed for all these EV charge points that in order to install an EV charge point the owner would have to pay for the cost of the upgrade which was a truly ridiculous figure.

This is extremely interesting from a laypersons perspective. And something which needs specific knowledge - which I do not have.
So I consulted Gemini. I have dm'ed you the full post I received. But in a nutshell, it says to focus on safety and not on the fact that they put it there.

1. The Danger Clause: Under the Electricity Safety, Quality and Continuity Regulations (ESQCR) 2002, UKPN has a strict legal duty to ensure their network is safe. The moment the brickwork becomes structurally unsound and their bracket risks pulling away, it transforms from a "convenience relocation" into a network safety issue. (. @NCOneDayOnly A convenience relocation would be your choice and at your cost)

1. The "Make Safe" Legality Trick: UKPN’s threat to just "make safe" and leave the property without power is a bluff. Under Section 16 of the Electricity Act 1989, they have a statutory duty to maintain a connection to an active customer. They cannot intentionally leave a paying customer disconnected permanently over a network fault they refuse to fix.

Hope this helps! And hopefully someone with more actual RL knowledge will reply to you too.

@UniDaysAcoming this is so helpful. Thank you for taking the time to respond. It’s definitely something I’m going to look into in much more detail now I know it might not be an entirely lost cause in pursuing UKPN for a solution.

@1dayatatime tjays really interesting and, you’re right, expecting a single homeowner to foot the bill for an entire infrastructure upgrade is ridiculous.

We've recently renovated what had been a derelict property. Our electrical wire was from a pole on our side of the road and into our roof. We needed the entire roof re-done, re-wiring and almost every wall replaced so the wire needed moving. DH looked into it more than me but this is what we did.

-Bought a green, electric box like the pic and positioned it close to our front boundary. We bought ours from ebay for about half the price of online shops and it was brand new!
-As said, our electrical pole was on our side of the road and UK power ran the cord down the pole and under ground and connected in the green box.
-This meant that the UK power only need to move the wire just inside our boundary, rather than to the house. DH tells me this was the cheapest option, because getting it to the house where the internal electric box is, would have been an additional 10m of UK power doing the work and cost alot more.
-The green box has an isolator switch inside, so from that point, we just needed a regular electrician to do the rest.
-DH dug a 700mm channel from the green box to the house. Once the cord was put in, I believe gravel needed to go on top and certain signed to warn that there are electrics under the ground.
-I believe the box has the option to be used in future if we ever bought an electric car.

I'd look into the underground option, but I have no idea of the additional cost of digging up your road. They could possibly use a mole drill to tunnel underneath the road and push the cord through that- but I have no idea if that would be an option. I hope you find a reasonably priced solution OP.

@5289843DM thanks for sharing your experience. I think UKPN are basically telling us there’s so much work involved because the pole is on the opposite side of our road. The issue is then compounded by our house being a bungalow and UKPN saying there’s nowhere on our roof that meets their minimum height requirement - which seems wrong because there are loads of other bungalows around here with the cable going straight across the road from a pole and then attached to the properties at way less than chimney height.

It could be because so many of the roads are unadopted around where l live that this has never been an issue for UKPN before but I can’t believe that NO-ONE around here hasn’t ever had the issue we now seem to be having; it’s a very exposed coastal location and the weather can be absolutely brutal so crumbling brickwork/chimneys can’t be an entirely alien scenario!

Have they given you any other option, is there the potential to run the service from the pole but for it to be put underground?

I would advise raising a formal complaint with UKPN with regards to your connection quote. UKPN will then have 8 weeks to resolve your complaint, if it isn’t resolved, you can ask for deadlock and take it to the Ombudsman. They have the power to decide if the cost is reasonable, especially as the DNO made the decision to attach the service there in the first instance.

I struggle with why UKPN simply can’t unattach your overhead service from your chimney and attach it to your fascia board. This will then meet the statutory height required under the ESQCR regulations,

@Snowflake26 ”I struggle with why UKPN simply can’t unattach your overhead service from your chimney and attach it to your fascia board. This will then meet the statutory height required under the ESQCR regulations”

From what the Op said that would make the supply run down from the top of the pole on the opposite side of the road to the fascia, and as the cable passes over the road, it falls below the minimum height (irrespective that other people have done it already).

Have you considered just rebuilding the chimney? If it’s not supported correctly in the loft, then don’t bother.
But if it is, it’s a cheap option.

Have you considered just rebuilding the chimney?

I already posted about our solution up thread, but when we renovated, we removed 3 chimneys. The roofer said they could install faux chimney's out the top of the roof to maintain the existing look. We chose not to. I have no idea what it would be made from, but I assume not brick/cement etc but might be a cheaper option to look into.

Yes, yours is the eloquent solution, but for the OP, the supply is on the other side of the road. They might be able to mole it under the road, the OP needs a quote for both options.
Rebuilding a chimney is cheap enough ( if already supported correctly in the loft, which is doubtful) and for the OP, is a once in a lifetime job.

On second thoughts, I don’t think they can mole a power supply under a road.

@KatiePricesKnickers @5289843DM @Snowflake26 - re-building the chimney would still mean the supply having to be moved whilst the chimney was re-built - which I assume UKPN would want to charge me for.

I’ve had the following response from UKPN from a ‘complaint form’ I completed on their website requesting them to look again at my case and asking them to provide a copy of the Wayleave Agreement:

“Thank you for contacting us. I tried to call you today to discuss your complaint but was unfortunately unable to reach you.

I have contacted our Property and Consents Team, who have checked their records and confirmed that they have been unable to locate a wayleave agreement for the electricity cable at your property.

If you would like to request the removal or relocation of the cable, please email [email protected]directly. The Property and Consents Team will then refer your request to the relevant surveyor for review.

When contacting the team, please include your full address, contact details and details of your concerns regarding the condition of the chimney stack. You may also wish to attach current photographs of the cable and brickwork.

Please note that the absence of a wayleave agreement does not automatically mean that the equipment was installed unlawfully or that it will be removed without further assessment. The surveyor will review the circumstances and advise you of the available options”.

What do we make of this response?

Oops. That's a big mistake on their part as they're technically trespassing on your land. And if there had been a wayleave agreement, you'd usually have had it drafted to include what happens if it needs moving, as in this situation.

I'd imagine it puts you in a stronger negotiating position (though I'm not a specialist lawyer on this issue).

My experience of complaining (which is long and varied) tells me that the lengthier response and the fact they tried to call you to discuss means they’re taking your challenge on this matter more seriously.

I also had some dealings with both UKPN and Cadent during our whole home renovation as we were considering moving our utilities cupboard from its rather inconvenient position in a cupboard basically in the centre of our ground floor - but moving the meters was going to be extortionately expensive!