Residents in Sandwich and Woodnesborough continue to have problems with their phone line due to a BT cable fault.

The Mercury reported last week that Mike Matthews, of Ash Road, Sandwich, has not been able to use his phone since December 17. Since then, other residents have got in touch to share their issues.

Sid Mills, of The Street, Woodnesborough, explained his 95-year-old mother‘s emergency phone line had been down for a month.

His phone line and his mother’s have now been fixed temporarily but he said there have been problems on and off for four years.

He added: “They say they’ve got to dig the road up and we’ve got to wait three weeks to get permission off the council but they never dug the road up anyway.

“They are building 24 new houses here so if they don’t have enough wires to cope with us how are they going to cope with them.”

David Cleary’s elderly mum and dad, who live in Strand Street, have had a fault with their land line since December 22.

Their son said: “A very helpful neighbour reported the fault for them but was told that if the fault was on the house side of the line that it would cost the occupants £110.

“Not how quickly they would get on and fix the fault, but lets frighten the old folk with a potential bill.”

Mr Cleary, who lives in Huntingdon in Cambridgeshire, phoned BT on January 4 and was told the faulty cables were located under a building which would have to be demolished in order to reach them.

Michelle Allen, of Richborough Road, Sandwich, said BT had told her it would reimburse her for calls made on her mobile over the Christmas period but this never happened and she was charged an extra £2.31.

She said: “All in all not only was I without a BT phone for two weeks but I also had to
pay for the privilege.”

Mr Matthews’ phone line has still not been fixed and he has contacted MP Laura Sandys for help.

“All in all not only was I without a BT phone for two weeks but I also had to
pay for the privilege.” - Michelle Allen.

In a letter to the Sandwich MP, he writes: “You have made great efforts to encourage businesses to locate to Discovery Park but I think some businesses there have been affected by this fault, three weeks without a phone line would tax any small company.

“This also augers badly for those who rely on the telephone, such as the disabled who have emergency call equipment.

“I wonder if BT managers would be content to justify their inaction to a coroners court if a disabled person had a fall at home and was unable to summon help because their phone had been out of order for three weeks.”

A spokesman for BT explained it does not comment on individual cases. He said: “We are again sorry for the extended nature of this loss of service.

“This repair is requiring further extensive, complex and time-consuming engineering works.

“This is a very deep excavation requiring us to work under traffic management.“We are doing all we can to get this done as quickly as possible. We have just over 60 reported faults outstanding to clear.

“We will have a clearer idea of final repair time scales by tomorrow evening (Wednesday), as long as the deep excavations go well.”