Fibre digging concerns

Deon Klein, Plumstead

My experience was exactly the same as Linda Pollard’s.

We had no advance warning of Frogfoot coming to install fibre cables in our area.

Three weeks’ prior to their arrival, I had spent a substantial amount of money rehabilitating the pavement bordering my property.

When the foreman / supervisor arrived to dig the holes, I refused to let them start any work until a senior person inspected the site prior to digging. Only at this stage was a letter placed in my letterbox.

Regarding rehabilitation to the original state, neither Frogfoot nor Vumatel, who installed cabling previously, have been successful in doing so.

I have attached some photos taken on Monday October 7 of the situation in Students Way and Windsor Road where there is unfinished work many weeks after Frogfoot left the area.

Roger Gunning, regional project manager, Frogfoot Western Cape, responds:

Please be advised that a letter-drop was done to every residence in the area. A lot of the time, residents do not check their post as regularly as they used to with the onset of emails.

Trenching is being conducted on the road reserve for which Frogfoot has City of Cape Town approval by means of wayleaves and permits.

Each resident in the entire area is entitled to have a choice of fibre provider, and, unfortunately, to install our network, the road reserve will have to be dug up. The trench-line should be reinstated within two to three days and the 1m-hole is a requirement to drill underneath the road.

The reason this hole remains open for a length of time is a requirement from consulting engineers who inspect the launch and exit depths for the drill and it is a check for any existing infrastructure.

The entire area is ‘’work in progress” and the road reserve will be reinstated ‘’as before’’.

The entire area is regularly inspected by the consulting engineers as well as council’s Transport and Urban Development Authority.