Virgin Media O2 UK Starts Trial to Tackle Vandalised Cabinets

A new 6-month long trial has been launched by broadband ISP and mobile operator Virgin Media (VMO2) in the City of York, which will see the provider working alongside the city council to repaint vandalised street cabinets and bring them back to their original state.

Sadly, vandalism and graffiti remain an all-too-common problem for telecoms street cabinets, as well as various other pieces of street furniture and infrastructure (Openreach and other operators suffer this too, so it’s by no means unique to Virgin). For example, Virgin Media notes that up to 200 cabinets are vandalised every single year, and that’s just in York!

To kickstart the scheme, damaged cabinets are being repainted, and new cabinet stickers will also be applied, making it easier than ever for local people to report damaged or vandalised cabinets. It is anticipated this will help speed up incident reporting and reduce the number of cabinets that are vandalised.

Locals can report graffiti online here: www.york.gov.uk/reportgraffiti or report it to VMO2 directly by calling 0330 333 0444. Callers will be asked to provide as much detail about the location of the cabinets as possible to help the team locate them (e.g. street name, nearby shop or business etc.).

Paul Edwards, Director of Field Engineering & Operations at VMO2, said:

“Through this innovative trial with City of York Council, we hope to make it faster and easier to remove graffiti from our on-street cabinets. Damage to our cabinets and equipment can cause customers to lose the vital services they rely on, so we’re committed to tackling this problem and keeping our customers connected.”

Cllr Paula Widdowson, City of York Council, said:

“We are really pleased to be able to join forces with Virgin Media O2. To be part of the first deal of its kind with them is important to us and it places us at the very forefront of tackling vandalism and graffiti.

Graffiti is criminal damage and a selfish act which spoils the local environment for residents and visitors alike. We hope this sends a clear message that we will not tolerate this type of vandalism. Following the trial, we hope to roll this partnership out further and are already in constructive talks with several other companies.”

Sadly the focus above is largely on repairs, rather than prevention, although realistically there are limits to what an operator can do on the prevention side of things. Cabinets have always been easy targets for such behaviour.

The catch with all this is that it could become quite a constant (repetitive) and thus expensive process, particularly in some areas where vandals can strike multiple times, and also if extended across the UK. Hopefully VMO2’s new trial will find a workable balance.

UPDATE 11:08am

We asked for a few more details on this and VMO2 informed us that, under the deal, teams from York council will go and “help” to repaint the cabinets. The council already have teams that do this sort of work on a daily basis, so by adapting those to include street cabinets then the issues may be sorted faster. This might also help to bring the costs down.