Can't have Smart Meters fitted because the Meters are 'too close' together?

Hi all

rightly or wrongly, been trying to get smart metres fitted to gas and electricity.

Booked up a free visit last year with OVO engineer and he took one look at it and said can't do it gov because your gas and electricity metres are too close to each other.

And off he went.

So, been toing and froing with OVO and they said they will be able to fit smart metres if minimum distance between said meters is achieved and it will cost me £125 to them to movement the gas metre, or so I thought.....

So booked a date in November for what I thought was going to be OVO to move the gas metre and was then told to phone Cadent i.e. British Gas for them to actually repositioned meter.

 Got a provisional quote from them for £790 to move it less than a metre !!

The cadent person also said there is no legal requirement for a minimum distance to be achieved for older gas and electricity installations although these days there is for new installations.

Googled it and couldn't find anything relating to it other than forum posts discussing whether there is room for the smart metres or not but don't have that problem at all here.

So, obviously not going to pay them £790 to move a gas metre and looks like I'll have to ask for the £125 I paid to OVO back unless of course anyone here knows different and the first engineer wasn't quite correct in saying I can't have smart metres due to the closeness of the existing meters? Hope someone can help out.

Thanks in advance