RESIDENTS in Helmsley were left without an internet connection for several days after contractors accidentally cut through cables.

The internet cables were cut by a firm that is erecting a fence on behalf of Yorkshire Housing around a grassed area in Elmslac Road.

When BT's Openreach engineers attended the site to repair the cables, they discovered that they had to dig the ground again.

Residents who were desperate to complete their online tasks, work and activities had to wait until the grass and soil were removed days later before having their internet connection restored.

Helmsley’s North Yorkshire Councillor George Jabbour the contractors had failed to instantly escalate the incident in an effective manner to ensure that the problem was fixed immediately. “

He said: "While it is very frustrating that the contractors of Yorkshire Housing accidentally caused the damage to the cables connecting the internet to residents’ houses on Elmslac Road, it is completely unacceptable that they then failed to quickly take appropriate remedial steps.

"I would like to thank the engineers of Openreach for promptly attending the site and for sorting out the issue. I am also grateful to our local MP Kevin Hollinrake for acting on this matter instantly -during the weekend- and for his help throughout this process.”

A Yorkshire Housing spokesperson said: “We’d like to apologise for any disruption and inconvenience that was caused by the temporary phone line outage and appreciate the patience and understanding of those affected.

“At the moment it’s not clear what caused the outage and we are investigating whether it was linked to work being carried out in the area by one of our contractors.

“As soon as we became aware of the issue we contacted BT Openreach who quickly attended and carried out repairs to restore the phone line.”