A DORSET village has been left without broadband or phone services for 15 days after a crash damaged a telegraph pole.

On Sunday, November 26, an incident near Stalbridge Weston damaged a pole, leaving households without working phone services or broadband.

Now, more than two weeks later, around a dozen households remain without services.

Openreach, the company which provides the line, said work to replace one pole had been carried out, along with the repair of fibre cables, however the replacement of a further pole was taking “a little longer than usual”.

But resident Nicola Fordham said the issue was causing real problems for villagers.

“Most have been reconnected, except for 11 properties,” she said. “They (Openreach) have given us lots of deadlines which have come and gone and we’re all told different stories by our providers as to when we’re going to get a phone line.

“Some of the people here are very vulnerable. There’s a lady in her 90s on her own who doesn’t even have a mobile phone; some others are very poorly.

“We have to go outside, to get a signal.”

A spokesperson for Openreach said they hoped to see more homes reconnected this week.

READ MORE: Work to bring superfast broadband to Vale villages continues this month 
READ MORE: More than 1,000 Somerset households to get access to superfast broadband
READ MORE: Superfast broadband reaches Bishop’s Caundle

“Following damage to one of our poles as a result of a road traffic accident a number of customers in and around Stalbridge Weston have been without broadband and internet service,” they said.

“To restore service contractors working on our behalf needed to remove a damaged pole and erect a new one in its place.

“We also needed to replace approximately 170m of overhead cable that had been damaged as a result of the accident.

“While the damaged pole was replaced quickly, we’ve since discovered that another pole will need to be replaced, which requires traffic lights to be in place and a road closure on Barrow Hill between Stalbridge Weston and Stalbridge so that our engineers can carry out the work safely.

“We’re sorry that this part of the work is taking a little longer than usual and would like to thank those that have been impacted for their patience.

“We’ve already replaced the damaged fibre cables and are starting to see some homes come back online and, subject to any unforeseen issues, hope to see the remaining customers have their service restored by end of Thursday.”