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BT issues delays warning for Isle of Arran, Scotland, NI and north of England

The recent cold snap gripping parts of the UK has forced BT to announce delays to repairs in a number of areas.

Engineers’ efforts to repair parts of the BT network are hampered by the same cause of the damage, the unseasonable weather. The Isle of Arran, which has been without electricity for three days, has been particularly badly hit, with repair vans not expected to arrive until tomorrow, March 27 at the earliest.

BT issues delays warning for Isle of Arran, Scotland, NI and north of England
An Openreach engineer, preparing to take on the elements. You might want to wrap up mate.

Read Recombu Digital’s report on BT Openreach’s broadband repair logs

BT says that there is a task force on standby who are waiting for the earliest opportunity for ferry access to the island. Parts of Scotland, Northern Ireland and the north of England have also been affected thanks to the weight of snow bringing down overhead lines.

BT has announced that the number of faults reported is up significantly for the week and trends suggest that the number will hit 69,000. Last Friday the work stack was around 24,000. BT hopes that by April 12 the number of faults reported will have dropped to around 20,000. Overtime is being offered to engineers to help clear out the backlog of work and get people reconnected.

Last year the UK was blasted by several instances of flooding which ruined homes and left several without broadband or phone services. BT subsequently hired hundreds of extra engineers to mitigate the damage done. Working into January this year, BT reported that roughly 100,000 more jobs were completed by Openreach engineers than the year previous.

The floods began in early April 2012, meaning by the time BT hopes to have the latest lot of damage fixed it will have been over a year since the initial floods (and subsequent repairs) began. Climate change? What climate change?

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