ELDERLY people living in a village near Devizes are feeling vulnerable and cut off after being without their landline for a week.

Philip Lough from Wedhampton has taken up the case on behalf of his elderly neighbours and written to BT to complain after his and their phone lines failed three times this year.

Mr Lough said: "I am taking up this case particularly at the behest of two sets of my neighbours, Terry and Angela Dutton Graham and Carol Sproston.

"Both couples are elderly and unwell, and are highly reliant on the phone and internet as a vitally important lifeline. Both couples are feeling distressed and vulnerable as a result of this continuing situation that has not been properly sorted out."

In the letter to BT he wrote: "Residents at the west end of Wedhampton are extremely disappointed in the service which we have been receiving from BT this year. In the last six months we have lost our landline and broadband on three separate occasions.

"As we also have no mobile signal in most of the village, and public transport is virtually non-existent, several of our number who are elderly and unwell are entirely reliant on their landline and internet for essential services such as doctor, ambulance, fire brigade or police, or to be able to contact relatives in an emergency."

He said that BT had time and again promised to send an engineer to fix the latest problem, which started a week ago, but yesterday it remained unresolved.

Mrs Dutton and Mrs Sproston are unhappy that they have not seen anyone from BT since last Wednesday when an engineer came out when the latest problem was reported.

Mrs Sproston said: 'There have been several promises to send a cherrypicker to sort out the problem, but none has appeared. There was a phone call to me from BT yesterday via a neighbour to say that they 'were working locally'.

"They hoped to have sorted out the problem in the next couple of days, and we should be sorted by the weekend - but it has been a week already, and this is the third occasion this year that we have had this problem'."

An Openreach spokesman said “After investigation we have found no major service problems in the area. We have 4 reported faults in the Wedhampton area and an engineer is fixing the service problem this afternoon, including Mr Lough. We have one other fault in the Wedhampton area, where an engineer is visiting the site, also this afternoon. Engineers are working as quickly as they can to restore service as soon as possible. We’re sorry for any inconvenience caused.”