This update to the MBORC declaration, due to aspects of recent severe weather, is issued as a special alert to all Communications Providers.

Due to heavy snow falls and freezing temperatures Openreach declared a matter beyond our reasonable control (MBORC)/force majeure event across the UK with effect from 21st December 2009. 

The declaration has been effective from 17.00hrs on Monday 21st December 2009. However it only applies where delays to provision and repair activities have been caused by the severe weather conditions in all parts of the UK. 

It is extremely rare for a national MBORC to remain in place for such a length of time but the unusually prolonged period of severe weather means that our operations are severely impacted by the conditions.

Whilst some areas have been more affected than others, we are seeing problems in all areas of the UK, including Northern Ireland. For this reason the MBORC will remain in place while these conditions continue.

The primary concern is the restricted mobility of our engineers caused by roads being either closed or impassable due to snow, ice or abandoned vehicles as well as the generally poor driving conditions. In some extreme cases, this has led to all of our vans being off the road, for a time, in particular areas due to the hazardous conditions. Other problems include joint boxes that are inaccessible due to snow or ice and overhead cables and wires being brought down by the weight of snow or ice.

These conditions can have serious impacts on the average time taken to complete each job. We are, of course, doing all we can to minimise the impacts of these conditions and are working to restore affected services as quickly as possible.

As a further reminder, it should be stressed that, whilst this declaration covers the whole of the UK, MBORC will only be applied to specific provision and repair activities delayed or prevented by the snow and freezing conditions.

We will continue to carefully review this situation and will lift the MBORC as soon as service returns to normal.

Meanwhile if you have any questions regarding MBORC please contact your service manager.

The contents of this briefing are accurate at the time of writing and are subject to change.

If you wish to discuss the information contained within this brief, please contact your Sales and Relationship Manager.

If you would like to be notified as soon as briefings are posted onto the Openreach website, please subscribe to receive Openreach RSS feeds.