Village's phone numbers mixed up after line repair

Residents of a small village were reconnected to the wrong telephone lines after a pole carrying cables was damaged by a large vehicle.

Nearly five weeks after the incident on a country lane at Eastbridge, near Leiston in Suffolk, some phones are still not working properly.

With poor mobile signals, some residents said they relied on landlines for their calls and for confirmation of hospital appointments.

Openreach, which is responsible for telecoms infrastructure, said it was aware of some crossed lines and a permanent repair would be carried out soon.

The accident happened on 2 August but residents said there was a delay while Openreach applied for permission to close a road to replace the damaged pole.

Villager Bob Flindall, 69, said: "The wi-fi was fixed quickly but when our landline phone was reconnected, we discovered we had been given our neighbour's number.

"My wife has been left waiting for phone calls about hospital appointments and the mobile reception here is awful."

Resident John Price said: "Openreach denied there was a fault because they said our line was ringing - and it was ringing - but it wasn't ringing on our telephone because they had patched the connection up wrongly.

"It took a further three weeks for them to acknowledge what we had been saying was right and it took at least 30 minutes every time to get through to someone and then they couldn't help us."

Mr Price said his correct phone number had now been restored.

Francoise Cresson, who also lives in the village, said: "For older people who rely on their landline, should they need to call carers and ambulances, it's been a very potentially dangerous situation."

A spokesperson for Openreach confirmed engineers had "put a temporary phone and broadband service in place".

They added: "Engineers will be returning soon to carry out the permanent fix, after which everything will return to normal."

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