Two different things
Worth separating at the start, because they get run together and they have different answers. Providing infrastructure at build means putting ducts, risers and a communications room into the building while it is being built, so that a service can be brought in later without breaking anything. It is a construction decision and it costs very little at the point it is made. Granting access afterwards means giving an operator the right to come in, use that infrastructure and install their equipment. That is a wayleave, and it happens after the building exists. A development can do the first perfectly and still face every wayleave question the day someone wants service. They are not substitutes.What the rules require
New dwellings in England must be built with gigabit-ready physical infrastructure, and, where it is reasonable to do so, with a gigabit-capable connection. Two boundaries on that, because both are frequently overstated. It applies to new dwellings rather than to commercial buildings, and it is a requirement in England rather than across the United Kingdom. Other parts of the UK and other building types are governed differently. What “gigabit-ready physical infrastructure” means in practice is the ducting and in-building pathways that let a connection be installed later, rather than the connection itself. The second limb, an actual connection, is qualified by reasonableness, which in practice turns on cost.Why a developer still meets wayleaves
Four situations, and most sites hit at least one. The site is not wholly owned. A connection reaching the development often crosses land belonging to somebody else: a neighbouring owner, an estate company, a retained parcel. That crossing needs an agreement, and it is needed before the building is finished rather than after. The development is phased. Phase one is sold and occupied while phase two is still a building site, and the infrastructure serving phase one runs through land the developer still holds, or has transferred, or is about to. Who grants what to whom changes as the phases complete. Estate roads and common parts change hands. Roads, car parks and landscaped areas are frequently transferred to a management company on completion, which changes who can grant access over them partway through the operator’s involvement. Operators arrive after handover. A building connected by one provider at build will be approached by others afterwards, and by then the developer has gone. Whoever holds the freehold then deals with it, which brings us to the part developers can most usefully think about.What the first freeholder inherits
Everything the development decided, and nothing about why. Whatever agreements exist, if anyone can find them. Wayleaves granted during construction are rarely registered and frequently live in a solicitor’s file that is not part of the handover pack. A building can be three years old and nobody can say which operator has a right to be in the riser. Whatever the infrastructure will and will not support. A single duct sized for one provider makes the building a monopoly, which is fine until a resident wants a different supplier and the answer is that there is no route for one. Whatever the management structure allows. Where common parts have gone to a management company and the freehold has gone elsewhere, the question of who grants access is settled by documents written before anybody thought about it.What makes a building easy to connect later
The cheapest things to do are the ones done at build, and they are not expensive at all in that context. Capacity for more than one provider. Duct and riser space sized so a second operator does not have to be refused for physical reasons. A recorded route. A drawing of where the ducts run and where they terminate, included in the handover, which is the single document most likely to be missing and most useful when it is not. Clarity about who grants. Settled and written down before the first operator asks, rather than derived from the title three years later by an agent who has just taken the building on. Copies of what was granted. Any agreement made during construction, handed over with everything else.Wayleaves in blocks of flats
What the completed building becomes: communal routes, many occupiers and one Grantor.
Do you need a wayleave?
The test, and the situations that need no agreement at all.
What a wayleave agreement contains
The clauses, including assignment and successors, which is what a handover turns on.