Phone-hit firms left hanging on

ANGRY traders . . . Alan Coldwell, Stephen McCann, Geoff Kerfoot and David Atherton

TRADERS on a Failsworth industrial estate say they have lost thousands of pounds of business after being left for 21 days without fully working phone lines and internet.

Thieves ripped out underground copper cables from beneath a BT manhole cover on the Crown Business Estate, George Street, on October 27.

Despite repeated calls to Openreach, a BT Group company responsible for replacing the wire, all 14 companies on the estate have struggled for the past three weeks without working phone and internet connections.

Geoff Kerfoot (45), from Royton, owns CST Automation Ltd which provides cable preparation equipment.

He claims to have lost £40,000 in sales over the past three weeks.

Mr Kerfoot said: “We’ve had lots of different responses from Openreach — from staff repeatedly telling us it will be working in two days to different ones who said there was no fault.

“Our sales are down because we are missing calls. Our four phone lines have had to be transferred to one mobile number and customers aren’t waiting to get through.”

Dave Atherton (46), from New Moston, owns Permaglade Ltd which has been on the estate for 20 years.

He said: “We are a screen printers company so everything we do, including orders, comes through emails.

“But our email has been down for about 20 days. Potential customers are sending us emails but, by the time we get them, we’ve lost the job because they have gone elsewhere.

“I’ve also had to divert business calls to my personal mobile which is exceeding my contract limit and means I’m paying £100 a week.”

A BT spokeswoman said that several underground cables had been damaged which affected 250 customers in the district.

Since then, she said, engineers had been working constantly to restore services.

She said: “It is extremely regrettable when we suffer this kind of third party damage to our network.

“As with any kind of incident, our aim is always to restore the services of those affected as quickly as we can.

“We regret the scale of this particular attack on our network has delayed the final repairs.”