Giganet ELITE Permissions and Wayleaves

What is a Wayleave?

A wayleave is a contract sent to a landowner which they sign to give permission for right of way on their land. Some landowners will charge in exchange for the wayleave.

What is the process?

After surveys have been completed we will be notified if any wayleaves are required for the work involved. Before the surveying phase is completed Openreach will do any land registry searches, if required, and the surveyor may ask you for information on the grantor when they’re at the survey on site. The primary contact should be able to validate this information for them.

If the primary contact can’t assist the surveyor in validating information, it may cause a delay for Openreach issuing the wayleave contracts.

Once the details are validated for the grantor Openreach will send them the wayleave contract. Once sent, Openreach will follow up approximately every 5 working days to check if they’re received it, and if so, if they have any questions. They will try to understand what each landowner’s process is for signing and subsequently returning the document. Openreach endeavour to keep us up to date with this process with information such as an estimated time it may take to get the contract returned.

Whilst the wayleave is being chased every 5 days, the order will be put down as delayed because of it.

Why are permissions required?

At the onsite survey the Openreach surveyor will try to get the permission to work and permission to dig forms signed off with the primary contact. The reason that they need these forms signed is for when/if they have third party contractors carrying out any of the work on their behalf. The forms give the contractor evidence that you have agreed for the work to be carried out, just in case they were to be challenged on this whilst they’re on site!

Without the permission to work and or permission to dig forms, Openreach won’t be able to progress any of the work associated to these forms meaning that there will be delays! So it’s important that your primary contact has the authority to sign these off or can get these signed quickly by the appropriate person, to avoid delaying the order process. For more information on the primary and secondary contact responsibilities, please click here.