The TV Digital Switchover and You

By 2012, television services in the UK will have gone completely digital - resulting in better picture quality and more choice.

If you rent or lease a council property and you receive your TV signal through a communal TV aerial system then this information is for you.

To make sure that individual residents receive the new digital signal, the council, as your landlord, has agreed an action plan to provide

• a new master TV aerial for most blocks and
• a new master satellite dish for blocks where listed or in conservation areas (so that individual satellite dishes are no longer required.

There may also have to be works to upgrade cabling and other apparatus to support the internal distribution of the new signal to each flat.

You will not need a new TV to go digital but some new equipment in some individual flats may be required where the TV does not have an inbuilt or separate digital (‘digi’) box (which most new TVs do).

The council’s action plan will include a number of stages to meet the 2012 deadline, including:

• Contract procurement - letting a contract to carry out the aerial and satellite upgrades (this will take about eighteen months). 
  
  
• Consultation - this will go on throughout the project with a borough-wide residents project group and block by block consultation with residents at the planning and works stages.
  
  
• Implementation - carrying out the works starting around March 2010. A schedule which will show which blocks are to be done prioritising listed buildings and conservation areas, along with areas with of poor reception.

The costs of the digital switchover are being met from the housing investment capital programme with (some) leaseholders having to pay a contribution, which will be subject to more formal consultation.

The existing weekly service charge for communal aerials will continue for both tenants and leaseholders.

Contact us

More information about the digital switchover for all tenants and leaseholders (including those who receive their TV signal through an individual aerial or dish) is available at www.digitaluk.co.uk.

For enquiries, contact 

Guy Valentine-Neale
Tel: 0800 952 4444
digital@southwark.gov.uk