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The government’s new changes to the Building Safety Regulator’s (BSR) approval processes in England (here) are causing additional delays to some of Openreach’s new broadband installs. Ironically the changes are being introduced to correct for the delays and increased costs of telecoms operators trying to deploy new networks into large buildings (MDUs etc.) under the prior system.
Last year plenty of problems were caused after the BSR updated their processes for minor works, which among other things caused problems for network operators that pushed up costs, often unpredictably (here). In short, putting a lot of red tape in front of even fairly routine work and thus slowing network deployments.
The good news is that an agreement was reached in July 2026, which saw the Ministry of Housing (MHCLG) set out special dispensation – lasting for the next 3 years – to cover related areas of work (e.g. drilling small holes to run new fibre and placing mobile masts on rooftops etc.) when deploying new digital infrastructure into such buildings.