Hundreds of homes and businesses have been without their landlines after a telephone company failed to repair a broken cable.

Phone lines in the Harrow-on-the-Hill area have been down since March 5, leaving hundreds of people in the area around the station without landline connection for more than two weeks.

Households say they have been given no details from the telephone company about when normal service will resume, nor why the lines went down in the first place with rumours circulating about vandals cutting lines and cables being cut during Headstone Road roadworks.

The fault was initially expected to be rectified by March 14, however 11 days later homes are still unable to use their landlines.

BT has been approached for comment and have been unable to provide any details of the line failure.

BJ Buckingham, of Brandreth Court, Sheepcote Road, said: “Those without a mobile are out of communication - acceptable for 48 hours or so, but this has been going on for two weeks.

“The sooner BT deals with this serious situation the better, as this is unacceptable.”

The issue is even affecting some households in Kenton, Brent.

Mr Bull, of Kenton, said: “How a national company such a BT can leave so many people in the lurch is absurd.

“Many people have mobiles, or they live with friends and loved ones, but what about the elderly? What if they fall in their home and are unable to call for help?

“This issue needs fixing immediately and BT need to seriously reconsider how they carry out their communications with customers.”

Several businesses have also been affected by the issue, with many unable to function as customers cannot call to make appointments or find out about services.

Jyoti Soneji, of Hill View Dental Practice in Sheepcote Road, said: “Due to communications failure between BT and the roadworks company, the fault is still not rectified.

“We understand that 200 telephone users in Harrow have been affected by this cable cut, and as a dental practice we are hugely dependent on the phones to make appointment bookings.”

Benjamin White, branch manager for Network Health in College Road whose lines went down over the weekend, added: “We just found that when we came back to work after the weekend, nothing was working and the lines had gone down.

“Normally we keep our lines diverted from Saturday evening to Monday morning, but yesterday we found the divert wasn’t on and we just assumed it was a power cut.”