on the 25th March 2013 at 18:59 . This has now been resolved on the 25th
April 2013 at 14:07
Over the weekend most of the country experienced severe weather =
conditions,
which have had a major impact on BT Openreach’s service.
As reported on the Service update call on Friday afternoon, their repair
work stack stood at 24k in line with their commitment. Today, they =
opened
with a work stack of just under 30k.
The weather has been affecting them in two ways:-
=95 Firstly, fault intake is up significantly and is trending towards =
69k
equivalent for the week excluding the bank holiday. They have been =
impacted
considerably with damage across many parts of their network with repairs
taking considerably longer to complete than normal.
=95 Secondly, their engineers are facing considerable access =
restrictions,
contributing to much longer journey times than usual.
Additionally, in parts of Scotland, Northern Ireland and Northern =
England,
their overhead line plant has been brought down by the weight of snow =
and in
some parts there have been major electricity outages.
The Isle of Arran, which has been very badly hit, has been without
electricity for three days and BT Openreach’s ability to reach the area =
is
being hampered by limited access. Getting their vehicles to the island =
by
ferry is not possible until Tuesday morning at the earliest and reflects =
how
difficult the situation is on the ground right now. They have a task =
force
on standby with the necessary equipment, just waiting to be transferred =
to
the island.
BT Openreach are working hard to recover the situation across the =
country
with the offer of more overtime and, during this unprecedented period, =
they
are looking at how they can reduce some of their provision work during =
the
first two weeks of April in order to move capacity to repair.
They are currently expecting to go into Easter with a work stack in the
region of 25-27k and will be looking to reduce this to around 20k by =
week
ending 12 April.
We will give a further update later this week and after the Easter =
break.
=09