'It's like having PTSD' - villagers left without broadband since last year

A couple in their 70s say they are becoming more anxious about their health after being left without broadband or a landline for nearly two months.

Howard and Brenda Parry, and a neighbouring property, lost broadband service to their remote homes near Llanelidan, Denbighshire, on 6 December - and have only been reconnected for two days since.

Brenda, 73, who takes medication for high blood pressure, says the condition had been exacerbated due to stress, while Howard previously suffered a heart attack and fears he might not be able to call for help in an emergency.

Openreach, which runs the UK's digital network, said damaged cable needed replacing and a road closure was required.

Earlier this month, the couple and their neighbours were reconnected but, within days, they lost service again.

Howard, 79, said that, in seven-and-a-half weeks, they'd had two days of broadband, which they rely on for their TV and landline.

"Sometimes the mobile phone signal is not very strong," he explained.

"All this stress and anxiety, it's occurred to me that if I needed help, I might have no way of calling for an ambulance. It's quite a sobering thought, and all this stress is making me more and more anxious.

"It's almost like a feeling of PTSD. It's a never-ending blow, after blow, after blow. And we're getting nowhere."

His wife, Brenda, said her mental health also declined and the stress was making her rundown.

"I'm on medication for high blood pressure. I can feel it's quite high, and I know it's all the stress of this. I don't sleep at night," she said.

Their neighbour, Christine Conway, said an Openreach engineer had told her applying for a road closure to do the repair work could take weeks.

Her husband works from home and has been forced to use his mobile phone as a hotspot since 6 December, with that signal often very patchy.

They had now both been forced to upgrade their mobile phone packages to cover the cost of using additional minutes and data.

Christine does not have a landline and depends on the internet to contact people when mobile signal is poor.

Openreach said it needed to replace 150m (492 ft) of damaged cable to reconnect the residents to their broadband services.

It added the cable crosses a 50mph (80 km/h) road and it was currently requesting a road closure for its engineers to work safely.

"We're sorry for the disruption and we'd like to thank Mr Parry and Mrs Conway for their patience," it said.