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Berwick St John: Safety 'compromised' after BT outage

BBC Berwick St John residentsBBC
Residents said without access to phones, vulnerable residents would not be able to access immediate medical help

Vulnerable people have been at risk for days since their phone lines and internet were cut off due to a fault, villagers have said.

Berwick St John residents in Wiltshire have been affected since 28 April.

BT Open Reach said the problem was due to water leaking into a connection box and it hoped to fix the issue soon.

But another resident Bridget Pearson said she remained worried for vulnerable residents who might need emergency medical help at any time.

"Having no access to a phone line is very worrying, because with my husband we get no warning if suddenly he falls," Mrs Pearson said.

"I would have to drive somewhere out of the village to make an emergency phone call."

Bridget Pearson
Bridget Pearson said the outage had made her anxious for the safety of her husband who might need medical attention at any time

Another resident Ian Hall said: "We received a text message on Friday morning saying that the problem was fixed, it wasn't.

"First it was going to be fixed on Tuesday, and then it slipped to Thursday, and then we were told the latest next guess was Friday.

"All over the weekend there was absolutely no activity whatsoever."

Google Berwick St JohnGoogle
Access to the internet and phone lines have been down since Thursday

NHS worker Mark Longman said he had to decamp from his home to the village hall to manage his NHS team with his laptop.

"I have to be very protective of the work that I have got in front of me because of patient confidentiality," he said.

"Plus the fact that even though we are quite geographically close it is still a lot of hassle."

An Openreach spokesperson said: "One of our roadside broadband cabinets serving some of the premises in the village had developed a fault and was letting in water.

"The cabinets are mains powered which meant our engineers had to switch off the source so they can work safely to fix the damaged cabinet casing.

"Unfortunately this has meant some residents have been left without broadband or a working phone line while the work is carried out.

"We're sorry for any inconvenience caused, our engineers were on site today to replace the cabinet casing."

BT Openreach said the issue should be resolved before Thursday.

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