Why are we still waiting? (From Knutsford Guardian)

Why are we still waiting?

9:11am Wednesday 3rd October 2012 in News By James Wilson

BUSINESSES on Knutsford’s industrial estate have been left with no internet for almost two weeks – and 2,000 homeowners saw their phone lines disrupted for three days – after two underground cables were damaged.

On Parkgate Industrial Estate the damage resulted in firms suffering from a broadband blackout for 10 days.

BT confirmed to the Guardian last Wednesday that a large part of the town was affected by the outage, including King Street and streets in Over Ward after water seeped into a pipe on Brook Street.

Initially this damage caused phone lines to be down in the town centre and residents reported their phones were back in working order on Thursday morning.

But in Parkgate, some businesses, including Xanos Ltd, Culzean Engraving and Oliver Valves, had no broadband at the time the Guardian went to press yesterday, Tuesday, after a third party caused ‘accidental damage’ to a cable.

Sheldon’s Dairy had to rely on calls being diverted to a mobile phone until Monday morning.

However, National Grid – currently replacing the town’s gas mains – denied it was them who had caused the damage when contacted this week.

A spokesperson for BT said one of the cables was damaged by accident, while another was affected by water.

“We are currently working on two damaged cables in this vicinity,” she said. “One caused by accidental damage and the other is due to excess water getting in.

“Engineers are working round the clock to replace the damaged cables – and in the case of the accidental damage, they need to build a new manhole too. The work is taking slightly longer than was originally hoped.

“The majority of the work was completed – and the majority of services restored – by yesterday (Monday).

“However this is one of a small number of outstanding residual faults still being worked on today (Tuesday) and tomorrow (Wednesday).

“We apologise for any inconvenience caused and it is regrettable when we suffer any kind of damage to our network.

“Our priority is always to restore services to those affected as quickly as we can, which is what we are doing in this case.

“We advise customers to contact their service provider to see if they can divert incoming calls on their affected services to an alternative number until the repairs are completed.”