Car crash leaves frustrated south Warwickshire villagers without internet

Villagers fear they are 'in for the long haul' of waiting for a repair
The broken telegraph pole in Priors Marston which is causing the internet outage.The broken telegraph pole in Priors Marston which is causing the internet outage.
The broken telegraph pole in Priors Marston which is causing the internet outage.

Villagers in Priors Marston have been without an internet connection for a week after a telegraph pole was knocked down in a car crash.

A car hit the telegraph pole in Hellidon Hill last Friday and, fortunately, the driver was not seriously injured.

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But BT Open Reach, which provides internet for other providers to piggyback their services from in the village, has said that the problem is not likely to be fixed until Thursday March 10.

Villager Judith Smith said "Being in a valley, the village has little or no signal from many of the mobile phone providers.

"This, in addition to the many people now working from home had added to the frustration.

"The updates from Openreach are few and far between.

"The date for repair keep moving.

"Our local parish councillor Emma Hooker has kindly escalated this to the district Cllr and MP and has said we could be in for the long haul.

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"As a full time working single mum, and someone who has no mobile phone signal in the village, it is becoming increasingly isolating and stressful.

"Not just from the lack of ability to flex my Working from home, but also the isolation and cost of petrol to now go into the office until this is sorted out."

It appears that BT's engineers are currently inundated with work in the aftermath of recent storms hitting the UK.

BT has said: "Some customers continue to face disruption to their services following the recent storms.

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"Our engineers are working to resolve these outages as soon as possible.

"We're sorry for any inconvenience caused."

Meanwhile, TalkTalk, the provider of Judith's internet, sent her an update saying: "The case has been escalated to a specialised team to have the issue fixed due to the severity of the damage to the pole. The notes from open reach read as follows:

"This has been sent to the network repair team for the repair to be scheduled, the pole is located on a 60mph road so traffic management is required and is in the process of being surveyed.

"The current ETA for the repair is the 10/03 due to the severity of the damage."

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