Storm Eunice: Ashburnham villagers 'frustrated' at four-week internet outage

A dozen homes and business were affected in the village of Ashburnham

BBC Ashburnham village — A dozen homes and business were affected in the village of Ashburnham

Residents of a small village who have been without an internet connection for four weeks since Storm Eunice have spoken of their "extreme frustration".

Ashburnham parish council clerk Dr Brian Holdstock said 12 properties were affected after trees damaged an overhead cable.

He said attempts to get Openreach to fix the cable had failed and it was giving out "daily false hopes".

Openreach apologised and said it hoped to complete the repair work this week.

About 200,000 homes were left without power when the high winds of Storm Eunice battered the UK on 18 February.

Dr Holdstock said an overhead fibre optic cable was damaged in a couple of places when trees were blown on to it in an Ashburnham country lane.

Dr Brian Holdstock said the cable had been lying in the hedge for four weeks

Dr Brian Holdstock holding up the cable — Dr Brian Holdstock said the cable had been lying in the hedge for four weeks

Four weeks on, he said: "You can still see it lying in the hedge."

He said: "It's extremely frustrating as you just can't operate as normal and our landlines are down too."

Local dairy farmer and chair of the National Farmers Union for Battle and Rye, Gillian Van de Meer, has also been affected by the outage.

She told the BBC: "It's extremely frustrating. In this day and age you need to be able to file specific documents online and we just can't do it.

"There are so many different types of businesses here, there are people working from home, families with children, and it's just gone on and on.

"It seems to be, if you are rural you are likely to be forgotten".

Local NFU chair Gillian Van de Meer said the situation was "extremely frustrating"

Local NFU chair Gillian Van de Meer holds up cables — Local NFU chair Gillian Van de Meer said the situation was "extremely frustrating"

Openreach described the damage to its network during Storm Eunice as "unprecedented".

A spokesperson said: "We hope to have the repair work in Ashburnham completed by the end of this week.

"We know how frustrating and isolating it can be to lose connectivity, so we're grateful for the patience shown by every community affected and apologise to the 12 homes and businesses affected in this part of East Sussex."