Should contractors face stricter penalties for damaging broadband networks during works?

A clear verdict from a small chamber: 29 of 37 voters wanted tougher penalties for contractors who damage broadband infrastructure, a 56-point margin that leaves little ambiguity about where sympathy lay after Maghull's three-day blackout.

The generational pattern is the story here. Every voter aged 55 and over who took part backed stricter penalties, 14 of 14 combined, while the 25-34 bracket was the softest, at 67% and the only group beyond the smallest cohort to show real division, 10 yes to 5 no. It reads like older voters, perhaps less tolerant of being cut off from landlines and routine services, took the outage more personally, while a working-age cohort more used to mobile data as backup shrugged more of it off.

Men and women split too, 83% to 67%, though both sides landed on yes by wide margins. The result taps a familiar British grievance about utility works, contractors seen as under-accountable for the disruption they cause, echoing long-running complaints about pothole repairs and street-works overruns rather than any single dispute over telecoms regulation.

Openreach's 3,000 stranded customers got their answer from the sample that showed up: this is not a case Britain-on-the-platform found finely balanced.