Cable thieves leave Geddington villagers without phone lines for weeks

Geddington residents have been left without a landline phone connection for weeks after thieves stole 1,000m of cable.

The problem – understood to have affected most of the village – has caused people to miss appointments and left others unable to work from home because it has also affected broadband connections to some houses.

Repair dates have constantly been pushed back since the issue began on July 19, but Openreach say the majority of their work is now complete.

Georgina Dredge, who lives in Skeffington Close, finally had her line fully restored yesterday after five weeks of issues compounded by a poor mobile reception.

She said: "It’s been terrible. We still had wifi but a lot of the village had nothing at all. There’s been people who work from home who haven’t been able to do their jobs there.

“I have missed doctors appointments and phone calls from medical people.

"Some people in the village who are elderly or vulnerable need their landline for emergencies.”

She said BT had initially claimed that the service would be reinstated within a few days and that she has since put in a formal complaint to the company’s chief executive.

Some residents thought they had been reconnected to their landlines on August 5 – only to find they had in fact been connected to a neighbour’s line meaning they could only receive and make calls from the wrong number.

Georgina said: "In this day and age you would think they would be able to plug the right phone into the right number.”

Others in the village are still affected by the outage and say that they’ve been told they’re unlikely to get any compensation because the cables had been stolen.

Many have been communicating with each other on Facebook to try and find out what is going on. Some say the issue has affected people who are trying to co-ordinate with tradespeople and has left elderly residents nervous as they have no way of contacting people in an emergency.

A spokesman for Openreach said: “We are dealing with a particularly complex repair here after people living in and around Geddington unfortunately became the latest to suffer from criminal behaviour.

“Around 1,000m of cable was taken, disrupting phone and broadband services locally. Our engineers have been working hard to replace the stolen cable, repair the damage and connect everyone back up again. But it’s not been easy. Work has been problematic due to the nature of the damage, but the majority of the repair is now complete.

“After major engineering works like this, we do occasionally get people reporting crossed lines in the area. This is the case here and we’re working through the reports as quickly as possible. Thank you to everyone who’s taken the time to contact their service provider (the company they pay for phone/broadband) to report the issue, and we ask anyone who hasn’t to do so immediately. This is the quickest way to get it fixed.

“We’re very sorry for any inconvenience caused and our engineers remain working in the local area to resolve any outstanding issues.”

BT has been contacted for comment.