FOR more than a week,from Monday, February 8, a number of families at Yeoford have been without a landline telephone - nor can they all get a decent mobile reception, if at all.

The phone problem has affected people in The Oaks, Station Road and Yeoford Meadows, although not everyone there has the problem.

One person said that she is normally able to work from home but has had to employ a child minder during the half term to look after her children while she goes in to work.

The faults have been reported to BT and earlier this week several people said they had been told their phones would not be restored before February 23.

But BT spokesman, Jason Mann, was reluctant to give a date. “We are sorry that the repair will take longer than usual, it is a complex job involving extensive repairs to the under ground network including underground cabling,” he said.

“I am told that about 40 customers reported a fault in the area but it will not necessarily affect everyone,” he added.

Jason could not confirm where the problem was or what it was saying, explaining there were lots of factors that could cause problems.

“We shall have to carry out extensive repairs. Our priority is to get this done as quickly as we can.

“It will need excavations of the road and we do not yet know if it would mean the road being closed or working to traffic lights. We are looking at a number of options. Our engineers are telling me they cannot be precise over a date when the phones will be working again,” said Jason. “The majority of faults are cleared the next working day.”

“If there are any customers who are particularly vulnerable, they need to highlight this to their service provider.”

He said most service providers would give a regular update on progress of a repair once a fault had been reported.

Most service providers, also, would be able to transfer incoming calls to a mobile phone.

Jason said that whatever option BT went for, it would have to replace cabling.

By Sue Read