Cut phone lines hit the crossharbour community

It took until Tuesday for BT to resume temporary phone services in Lanark Square and Pepper Street.

As well as residents, many businesses in the area were also hit, especially those which rely on the internet to function.

Sam Sonzini, office manager at Icofin UK, a business and management consultant based at Lanark Square, said: “We do all our work with phones and the internet, so we have lost two days of business. And we haven’t even had an apology yet.�

For the last few weeks work has been carried out at Crossharbour DLR to increase the length of the platforms to provide an extra car for commuters.

On the previous two weekends digging was successful on the west side of the station, but the work went wrong on the east side.

One resident from Lanark Square said he tried to tell the workmen about the problem but was ignored.

He said:“When I saw Taylor Woodrow supervisors I said, ‘you’ve done some damage here’, but they didn’t stop. When the BT guys came on Sunday the Taylor Woodrow people still didn’t seem to think they had done anything wrong.�

However, the resident said that by Tuesday he had received a letter from Taylor Woodrow apologising for the problem.

By Wednesday morning tents with BT workers inside were still at Pepper Street and East Ferry Road, while temporary telephone cables were visible on the street.

A spokesman for BT said the company had so far received about 80 reported faults. “Engineers are on site and have put in replacement sections of cable,� he said.

A spokeswoman for Taylor Woodrow said: "Prior consultation with BT and reference to existing infrastructure plans, together with trial excavations on site had failed on this occasion to locate the services within the pile cap area and these were unfortunately damaged during the piling operations.

"Since the identification of the fault, Taylor Woodrow has worked with, and assisted British Telecom in restoring the service to their customers, and have implemented further measures to ensure that no further services remain in the area of piling."