In its Digging up Britain 2021 report, LSBUD found that the UK telecoms industry has increased its digging work 24% from last year, spurred on by the national fibre rollout.
LSBUD, who provides a free to use online search facility for underground pipes and cables, reported that there were 1,125,843 searches through its portal by telecoms operators and their contractors in 2020, meaning telecoms searches now make up 36% of all inquiries made.
The study showed that 904,120 were performed under the ‘initial enquiry’ category, making up a significant 29 percent of all requests.
“What this shows is that while still able to carry out projects in 2020, the telecoms industry was also looking forward to doing more this year,” said Richard Broome, MD at LSBUD.
“As COVID-19 restrictions are eased and non-essential projects get up and running again, the level of excavation work will boom. Given the ambitions at Government-level, I can’t see this momentum slowing down for a while to come.”