Villagers Left With No Internet Or Phone Lines After Major Cable Damaged

Villagers in North Kilworth look set to be left with no internet or phone lines for the next few days, after a major cable was damaged.

Around 400 homes and businesses are affected by the outage, which is causing particular problems for people who are working from home because of the pandemic.

Children from St Andrew’s Primary School can also not take part in home learning or remote lessons.

A team of Openreach engineers are working to restore services, after the cable at the side of the A4304 was severed yesterday afternoon, during work by a third-party.

Villager Aidan Perks spoke to Hfm:

A spokesperson for Openreach said: “Our engineers are doing all they can to repair the damage and get local homes reconnected. We fully understand how much people are relying on their broadband connection at the moment, for work, school and keeping in touch with people.

“A number of our cables have been badly damaged and need replacing. We’ve started that work today, but it’s a manual and methodical task which involves installing many metres of new cable, possibly new ducting, and then joining it all together. Realistically, this is going to continue throughout the weekend and into the early part of next week.

“It’s really important that anybody who is without a connection reports this to the company they pay their bill to. Openreach works on behalf of hundreds of service providers and we need the faults to be reported so that we can prioritise the repair work for those who need it most.”

The Learn Academies Trust, of which St Andrew’s School is part of, says its IT team is working hard to try to sort out other ways for the school to access the internet until the problem is fixed.

In the meantime, the school phone lines have been diverted and staff are able to pick up incoming calls on the normal number and the school will keep in touch with parents by email.

Children who have no internet will be provided with paper-based home learning from Monday and remote learning is continuing as normal for children who are able to access it.

Harborough MP Neil O’Brien told Hfm villagers have been contacting him about the issue:

Openreach have been approached for comment.

Work is continuing to restore phone lines & internet to villagers in North Kilworth
PIC: ANDY CARPENTER

Work is continuing to restore phone lines & internet to villagers in North Kilworth
PIC: ANDY CARPENTER

Work is continuing to restore phone lines & internet to villagers in North Kilworth
PIC: ANDY CARPENTER