Internet was wiped out after crane takes out wires
BT BOSSES have apologised after a lorry ripped down several telephone and internet wires in Darfield – leaving residents unable to contact the outside world.
The Hiab crane-equipped lorry ripped down several wires connected to homes on Nanny Marr Road on August 25.
Several houses have been disconnected from the landline telephone and internet network.
Local councillors, including Coun Pauline Markham, Coun Trevor Smith and Coun Kevin Osborne have been speaking with those affected.
In a letter addressed to Clive Selley, CBE, chief executive of BT Open Reach, they said: “There appears to be very little communication with either yourselves or telephone/internet service providers on the incident, or a timescale of repair. We thoroughly understand that the customers, in this case, are the service provider, but some communication with those affected from yourselves, even if it is just a note through the door, will go some way to overcome what appears to be a wall of silence on this issue.
“Residents are now without landline telephone and internet for over a week, and this is causing some distress and frustration.”
In response to the letter, high level complaints and contact manager at BT Open Reach, Adam Langford, responded with an apology.
He said: “I am so sorry to read of the service outage which has left a number of residents without connectivity. I do appreciate how frustrating this must be for all those that are affected by the outage, and I promise we will do everything we possibly can to put a fix in place as soon as possible.
“We are going to take full ownership of the repair moving forward and we will keep you fully updated with any progress that we make along the way.”
Keeping their promise, BT Open Reach contacted Barnsley Council with an update on the current situation. They sent engineers out to the site to investigate the safety of the telegraph poles and following this, they told the council: “We’ve had an experienced engineer out today to review the current situation and we’ve established there’s a total of seven telegraph poles which require testing to ensure they’re safe enough to have new cables fitted to them.
“Once we’ve tested the poles, we’ll have a much better idea of what’s required to resolve this.
“If the poles are structurally sound, we can begin work on putting new cables up, but if any of the poles aren’t safe enough to have new cables attached, we may need to look at replacing one or more of the poles, along this route.”
BT have said confirmed there is currently no safe way of providing service to anyone that is without an internet or telephone connection. The suggestion of a temporary connection for residents was investigated, but unfortunately is deemed as unsafe.