RESIDENTS and business owners in the Grange area have been left confused and frustrated as phone line issues continue to cause havoc.

In a spate of problems that have lasted almost a fortnight, there have been cases of crossed phone lines as home and business owners have been receiving strange calls, some from the other side of the world.

One of the business owners, Ian Maynard of Lindale Post Office, said: "This is quite a big area and our business, other businesses and homes have been affected.

"We have had crossed lines with phone calls coming from the likes of Australia and Birmingham."

Strange voices were just one of the problems that Mr Maynard faced at the post office. 

He said: "It has caused problems with our alarm system for the building which is connected to the phone line.

"Calls have been coming in at 10pm or 11pm at night. It actually set off the alarm recently at 1am which didn't make us popular with the neighbours."

Mr Maynard speculated if new broadband connections being fitted in the area could be to blame.

He commented: "We keep getting notices that the end date for this work keeps being pushed further and further back so we don't know when this problem could end."

Staff at Lindale's Cumbria Grand Hotel have also experienced problems.

Hotel manager Mark Riddley said: "It has been a logistical nightmare. We simply cannot quantify how much damage this has been costing us.

"All our systems for our e-mails and our bookings are down, people trying to get through to the hotel are hitting poor lines and at that point they simply give up.

"We've got credit card machines down and even the chef is having to spend much more money and effort just to make the orders to get his produce in each day. It is a total shambles!" 

A spokesperson for Openreach, the company that maintain and install local networks on behalf of communication companies, said: "Engineers from Openreach are working hard to restore services to around 200 customers after a section of underground cable went faulty.

"Openreach apologises for any inconvenience caused."

BT have since responded saying that around 80 metres of underground cable is being replaced by Openreach.

These repairs are due to be completed by their engineers today.