Neighbours want a cable box removed from the bottom of their street as it is blocking out their street sign.

The green box was installed in front of the Lister Lane sign where it meets Idle Road in Undercliffe, Bradford, by Yorkshire Cable workmen.

After receiving complaints from residents Councillor Howard Middleton (Lib Dem, Bolton) contacted the company and asked them to remove it.

But a Yorkshire Cable spokesman said under law there was no need to apply for planning permission and the company had liaised with Bradford Council over the positioning of the box.

Now Coun Middleton is backing a national campaign by the Local Government Association to try to change the law.

He said: "At the moment cable companies can come along and install a cable box wherever they want and there's nothing you can do about it.

"The situation in Lister Lane is ludicrous. Surely they could have put the box either side of the sign. There is another box lying down right in the middle of the Five Lane Ends roundabout.

"The aim of the campaign is to bring cable box installation within the realms of planning law. At the moment you could wake up and find a box stuck outside your house and you couldn't do anything about it!"

A Yorkshire Cable spokesman said the boxes were used as distribution points to receive and transmit signals.

He said as they are built on highway authority land and not on private property the company could not discuss the position of individual boxes.

But a spokesman for Bradford Council's Highways Department spokesman said it could only insist the boxes did not narrow the pavement to less than one metre or get in the way of motorists or pedestrians.

The spokesman added: "If residents want a box moving, the only people who can take that decision are Yorkshire Cable, the Council has no power to intervene if it meets the guidelines."

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