Swish Fibre broadband firm’s apology to Buckingham residents over Sunday working

Page Hill resident Mark Cole spoke to the Bucks Herald last week, complaining of noise and disruption seven days a week from works to install fibre broadband on Page Hill.

Mr Cole said the noise was “like listening to a chainsaw” and residents had to keep their doors and windows shut despite the hot weather.

And he begged: “All we’re asking really is, please don’t work on Sundays. We understand you’ve got to do the work but give us a break, one day of rest."

Peter Martin, deputy cabinet member for transport at Buckinghamshire Council, said: “We are sorry to hear that residents have been disturbed by these works...

"No works should be carried out on a Sunday unless they are for emergencies.”

Now Alistair Goulden, co-founder of Swish Fibre, has issued an apology to Page Hill residents.

He said: “We want to sincerely apologise to all residents and to the council for the disruption over the last two Sundays in Buckingham.

"On both occasions, a couple of our teams were eager to complete a number of smaller reinstatement tasks to try to finish their work quickly and efficiently.

“Going forward, please be assured that we will continue to minimise our out-of-hours work as much as possible.

"Where we do need to complete work outside of normal working hours, it will only be where we have permission from the council.

“Swish prefers to use infrastructure that’s already in place. However, in over 50 per cent of cases, this infrastructure does not exist, which means sometimes disruptive civils work must be carried out to provide residents and businesses with access to our state-of-the-art full-fibre broadband network.”

Mr Goulden added: “We advise residents to refer to the Swish Fibre Build Updates page for construction updates and we also direct customers to https://one.network/ which shows a list of the permits issued to all utility companies in the UK.

“Once again, I want to apologise for the disruption and if you have any concerns, please don’t hesitate to speak to the team on the ground or contact us directly at [email protected]”