Villagers without internet or phones for 20 days

Hundreds of people in a Warwickshire village have been without access to the internet and landline phones for 20 days.

Residents of Wootton Wawen have been cut off due to a damaged network cable serving the village caused by the recent wet weather.

Robert Carthew told the BBC he felt "undressed" without access to his landline phone, which has been out of use since 30 January.

Openreach, which is carrying out the repairs, apologised for the outage and said it expected to restore service by 26 Feb.

Phone provider TalkTalk estimated about 800 people living in the area were affected by the issue.

Users are still able to access fibre broadband - but Carthew said many of the local residents were pensioners who relied on landlines more than mobile phones and the internet.

He said: "I can cope without the internet, but not without the landline.

"I have a mobile, but my signal is much better on the landline and I haven't been able to make or receive any calls.

"There are a tremendous amount of people [living here] that are pensioners."

Local councillor Ian Shenton said the issue was causing a mixture of outrage, disbelief, and stress.

He said: "If Openreach don't fix this quickly, affected residents could have been without landlines for nearly a month, potentially putting people's health and lives at risk.

"To some the lack of a phone service could also mean social isolation and affect their mental health and wellbeing.

"What the service providers and Openreach don't seem to understand is that some vulnerable residents may not have any other means of asking for help such as fibre broadband - which is still working- or a mobile phone."

Talk Talk advised any of its customers to contact its welfare team.

An Openreach spokesperson said: "We're fixing a major copper cable serving the village after recent wet weather caused flooding in an underground access point and damaged part of the network.

"Our engineers are replacing two large sections of cable and will be using temporary traffic lights so they can work safely.

"They're also working overnight to get everyone back online as quickly as possible. Some homes are already reconnected, and we expect the rest to be back on by next Thursday. We're sorry for any inconvenience this is causing."

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