UPDATE 30 October2025: I was finally able to get in contact with the FTTH Manager – East Operations for Nubuild Contracting. He was very pleasant to deal with. He apologized, and promised to make everything right. They paid for a replacement sign, which we ordered from the original manufacturers in Wales. They removed the black plastic “flowerpot” from beside the sign and ran a fibreoptic cable to the outside of our cottage. They showed me an official survey that put their concrete “vault” within the road allowance, not on my property, despite the fenceline. However they removed many invasive buckthorn trees from around the vault, which will allow me to plant fast-growing native trees and shrubs around it. All-in-all, a very satisfactory response. Hopefully by next spring there will be few signs that anything bad ever happened.

And he did! They quickly paid for a replacement slate sign. We contacted the quarry in Wales where the original was made, and they were able to find their records and make an exact duplicate, which we picked up on a recent trip to the UK.,

The black plastic box by the sign is called a flowerpot”and is put in place until a drop from the main fibreoptic cable to the house is made. This has now been done, so the flowerpot is not needed. The area where it was buried has been graded, covered in topsoil, and seeded.

The “inspection pit” is called a “vault” and needs to be away from the roadside so it is not damagedby snowploughs or buried in snow. NuBuild had an official survey that says they installed the vault on the road allowance. All I had is an old fenceline, so maybe they are correct. They removed the concrete they had left behind. They had knocked over some invasive buckthorn bushes so I felled them and they removed the wood.

Eventually I will plant native trees and shrubs in the area, and it will be better than it was before!

Once I was able to get in touch with the correct people, they did an exemplary job of dealing with the issue and making things right. Kudos to Mike and Mike!

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Axle Telecom is a small communications company owned by WPC Infrastructure, and managed by Windsor Private Capital, a Toronto-based investment firm.  It has been installing fibre optic cable to provide high-speed Internet to people living in Northumberland County. Fast and reliable internet connections are a benefit for both recreation and business. However, companies that install Internet cables should not be able to run roughshod over the rights of local property owners.

When Axle Telecom installed fibre-optic cable on Oak Hills Road near Bewdley, they bulldozed through our fence, destroying it and taking down several trees, to build an inspection box on our property, without our permission. They then dumped their waste concrete on our land.

At the foot of our driveway, on our property, we have a slate sign that we purchased in Wales while we were there to scatter a relative’s ashes in the churchyard where they had been married. It has sentimental value as a memory of that occasion, so we were horrified to find that it had been deeply gouged, beyond repair, by one of Axle Telecom’s trucks.

We brought this issue to their attention by email on June 19th, 2025. After twelve emails spread over six weeks, we were unable to get any offer of compensation from Axle. Furthermore, while this conversation was ongoing, they dug up our garden right in front of the sign to install an ugly black connection box!

To make things right, we are asking that Axle:

Removes the inspection pit from our property, restores our fence, takes away their waste concrete and plants new trees to replace the damaged and uprooted ones.

Pays us $500 so that we can order a replacement sign and have it shipped from Wales.

Move the black plastic junction box to a less prominent location off our property.

UPDATES:

The new sign in place:

The vault after the area was cleaned up and partly replanted: