UPDATE: Phone lines down after attempted cable '˜theft' in village

Resident David Davies, of The Juggs, West Chiltington said someone had ‘tried to extract wires’ damaging phone lines in West Chiltington and the surrounding area.

He said: “Our phone lines are non-operational as somebody has tried to extract wires cutting off access from West Chiltington to Storrington.

“We believe it must have happened last night because I woke up this morning without any signal. I spoke to my neighbours and they also said they had been having problems.

“I have spoken to BT and they told me that it would not be fixed before the weekend and by Tuesday at the absolute earliest.

“There are a lot of people affected by this, some elderly who desperately need their phones to contact people.

“The post office in West Chiltington is currently nonoperational due to this.

“A lot of people have been cut off and this is going to affect a lot more.”

A spokesperson for BT Openreach said, “We have suffered damage to an underground cable following an apparent attempted theft of cabling, which is affecting some services in the area.

“Openreach Engineers will need to replace around 250 metres of underground cabling and also build a new underground cable access box. Because of the complex works needed we cannot give a repair time at this stage.

“It is extremely regrettable when Openreach suffers any such damage to its network. In such cases every effort is made to undertake the necessary repairs and restore any affected services as quickly as possible.

“Network security is of paramount importance to us, and Openreach uses many security measures in the fight against cable theft.”

Don’t miss out on all the latest breaking news where you live.

Here are four ways you can be sure you’ll be amongst the first to know what’s going on.

1) Make our website your homepage

2) Like our Facebook page

3) Follow us on Twitter

4) Register with us by clicking on ‘sign in’ (top right corner). You can then receive our daily newsletter AND add your point of view to stories that you read here.

And do share with your family and friends - so they don’t miss out!

Always the first with your local news.

Be part of it.