Thousands of homes lose internet during sewer repairs

A suspected accident by contractors carrying out sewer repair work has resulted in an internet and phone-line blackout for about 3,000 customers in part of Merseyside.

Broadband provider Openreach said workers carrying out sewer excavation work on Hall Lane, Maghull, caused "significant damage" to part of its underground network.

Businesses and residents in the area have been without internet or landlines since about 13:00 BST on Thursday. Openreach have said if everything goes to plan then connectivity should be back up and running by early Saturday evening.

Joy Sinnott, who works at Meadows Pharmacy on Liverpool Road South near the excavation site, said the issue had caused "chaos".

She said staff at the pharmacy first realised something was wrong at lunchtime on Thursday, but initially believed it was their own network provider.

However, customers soon began reporting a raft of problems throughout the area.

Since then, the business has had to cope with no phone line, one working computer and no card payment machines.

"It is crazy just how much everything depends on the internet," Sinnott said.

"Obviously it's one day but with no internet we've got no access to patient prescriptions, patient records and with the phones obviously we haven't got access to GP surgeries."

Sinnott said staff had bought a dongle and were trying to use wifi hotspot features on their mobile phones to get by.

"There's end-of-life medication, antibiotics. There could be like an urgent prescription for a child or an elderly person so it does vary, but we are trying our best to prioritise what we believe needs prioritising," she said.

She said it was "carnage", but they had policies in place, but added: "I'd be lying if I said it was easy."

"It's very stressful at the minute, very chaotic, but we're doing our best and all the people in the community are really understanding as well," she added.

The pharmacy's manager, Sue Jayne, added that the outage left staff unable to access the internet, telephone calls and emails.

She told BBC North West Tonight staff were "just trying to control and manage and do important things first and prioritise anybody who needs us more than straightforward repeat prescriptions".

John Currie who owns Home Bar & Grill restaurant in Maghull said: "A lot of people had to close yesterday.

"The betting shop - all their screens went down."

He added: "Our tills aren't working, our card machines aren't working. We can't take bookings, so it's a nightmare really but we've just got to soldier on and get through it."

"The quicker we get it fixed, the better."

Councillor David Leatherbarrow, who represents Maghull East, said: "At first when it happened we thought it was a short outage and it was just one of those things.

"As we've realised the scale of it and the impact on people trying to get childcare last minute to go to the office when they're expecting to work from home and things - it's been a massive impact on the local area."

Openreach said engineers had worked through the night to assess the damage and begin repairs.

It said: "Several cables have been severely affected, and the excavation site must be made safe as it's currently unstable.

"Some people in the area are experiencing a loss of phone and broadband. We know how important these connections are and we're very sorry for this disruption.

"We're working as quickly and safely as possible to restore service."

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