Hundreds of homes and businesses near St Neots have been left without broadband after thieves stole around 500 metres of cable from Openreach’s network. It’s the third time the same part of Cambridgeshire has suffered this kind of attack since February last year.
The latest theft happened close to the A428 between St Neots and Wyboston. According to information given to ISPreview by Openreach, the thieves first arrived on Monday 3 August and triggered an alarm. They returned the following night and remained in the area into Wednesday morning, when the cables were removed and the network was badly damaged.
Repairing half a kilometre of broadband cable isn’t a case of joining two loose ends back together. Openreach says engineers will need to carry out extensive reconstruction before everybody is reconnected, with the work expected to take several days. The location beside a busy road may also restrict when engineers can work safely.
Image Credit: Discover St Neots
A picturesque flyover view of the idyllic Cambridgeshire town of St Neots
Report the outage now or you could miss out on compensation
If your service has stopped, report it directly to the company you pay for broadband. Openreach owns the damaged network, but your provider remains responsible for keeping you updated and recording when your outage began. Don’t assume it already knows that your individual connection is down.
BT, EE, Plusnet, Sky, TalkTalk, Vodafone and several other major providers belong to Ofcom’s automatic compensation scheme. If a complete loss of service isn’t repaired within two full working days after you report it, qualifying residential customers should receive £10.34 for each further day without service. Cable theft doesn’t automatically excuse a participating provider from paying.
St Neots has been here before. Thieves stole around 500 metres of cable in February 2025, cutting off approximately 380 customers. A month later, more than a kilometre was damaged in the same area and repairs took most of the week. Full Fibre will eventually make copper theft less attractive, but it can still be damaged when thieves drag cables from shared underground ducts or mistake fibre for something they can sell.
