A DISGRUNTLED parish councillor has been told he could have to fork out almost £130 after engineers accidentally ripped up his phone line.

Trevor Manning has been left without phone and internet since Thursday after BT workers dug holes in the road outside his home.

They were fixing his neighbour’s broadband problems, but managed to disconnect Mr Manning’s line in the process.

He said: “They fixed my neighbour’s line and managed to knock out mine. It took me 20 minutes to get through to BT to report the problem and they said an emergency engineer would be sent on Friday.”

But no one has turned up.

Mr Manning added: “They even said if the problem was with my phone line, then I would be charged £127 to my bill for them to fix it. But I haven’t caused this.”

It is not the first time Mr Manning, of EwanWay, Stanway, has faced internet connection problems.

The Stanway parish councillor said: “There have been problems for three years. BT just don’t care.

“I have had to ring up three times in the last month because my internet has gone down.

“They dug up the road a while ago to put cables down, but it didn’t solve the problem. My neighbour has had exactly the same issue.

“I pay between £50 and £60 a month for this service and half the time I can’t use it.

“I am a parish councillor and need my emails because that is where we get most of our business and notifications.

“Without that, and my phone line, I cannot do my work.”

A BT spokesman said it was investigating Mr Manning’s service fault and the billing issue.