BT blames bad weather for East of England repairs backlog

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-22143720

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BT has blamed months of bad weather for problems across its telephone network in the East of England and said repairs were taking far longer than expected.

The company said cables had been damaged and manholes flooded over the winter.

Some customers in Wenhaston, near Southwold, Suffolk, have been without telephone and broadband since January.

BT said it was working to reconnect customers and had taken on extra engineers to clear the backlog.

Liz Hill, who formed a protest group in Wenhaston because she was concerned about elderly neighbours being left without telephone lines, said BT had failed to keep customers in the village well informed.

"They really don't give us enough information," she said.

"For one of the largest communications companies in the country, they are not very good at communicating."

'Very little response'

Patricia and Julian Allen, who lost their phone line and broadband connection three weeks ago, said: "We have contacted BT via Twitter, email and telephone call and there's been very little response from them."

In East Harling, Norfolk, BT cables were accidentally cut through three weeks ago.

Julie Hayden, office manager for Holden Plant Hire, said its line had been affected and business was suffering.

She said: "We keep being told that an engineer's coming out. We haven't seen any engineers and I don't know when it will get fixed."

BT spokesman Paul Hayward said: "We'd like to apologise to all of the customers affected because, whilst these were extreme examples, restoring service has taken far longer than we expected.

"The last year has seen some of the worst weather for 100 years and unfortunately it's caused some issues in our network, not least the flooded manholes and damage to cables.

"Our engineers have been working exceptionally hard to deal with these issues, and they've attended a record number of appointments in the last few months.

"We have also recruited more than 1,000 extra engineers, which is already having a positive impact, and we'll keep working on ways to provide a better service to our customers."