A leafy market town has been left without internet for two days after unruly rodents gnawed through underground cables.
An engineer from BT Openreach spoke to local residents after four vans were parked by Nuyard between Tring and Northchurch.
The engineer claimed rats have chewed through one of the underground fibre cables, impacting the town’s 12,000 inhabitants.
Local resident Rachel Millington, who said she spoke to the engineer yesterday, wrote on social media: “They have been clearing vermin and are now working on replacing the cable.
An image of rats nibbling on food
PA
“They will be working through the night [and] they don’t expect services to be restored until late tomorrow evening.”
Sian Jones, who also lives in Tring with her partner and three children, suggested rats were behind the havoc in Hertfordshire.
She told GB News: “I heard that there has been an infestation of rats that chewed through the finer cables between Northchurch and Tring.”
Jones detailed how difficult the last few days have been for the family during the school summer holidays.
“It’s been hard because everything runs through the internet,” she explained.
“We are an active family with two dogs and three kids under 12.
“I don’t drive and my partner works in London so bar dog walks we’re kind of stuck in the house.
“And my phone is the only device that is connected so you can imagine the arguments between the kids over it.”
A generic image of OpenReach workers
PA
The mother-of-three added: “Don’t get me wrong the kids are not on screens all day by any means but it is part of their lives and will be a huge part of their future.
“BT have said [the internet should be back] late evening tonight, although I won’t be betting on it.
“This seems like it’s affecting such a huge area. Mums across Tring are pulling their hair out. It will have done wonders for the wine industry, I’m sure.”
GB News understands residents have been told that the incident was first detected on July 28.
A message sent to people impacted in Tring estimates the issue will not be fixed until August 3 at 7pm.
The message added: “Sorry for the inconvenience. We hope to have you back up and running as soon as possible.”
The internet outage has led to disruption in the area, particularly as Britons shun office work to work from home post-pandemic.
Simon Birley argued working from home during the internet outage impacted work “pretty drastically”.
Working from home has been made much more difficult
PABirley, who sells products to the property market, told GB News: “I couldn’t get anything done yesterday, if I’m honest.
“I’ve had to come into Reading to my head office to work.
“Normally I’d be able to do it from my phone but the 4G has been terrible as well because I assume more people are trying to use it than usual.
“There was zero ability to work from home yesterday so I had to come into the head office today at a personal expense.”
However, the internet outage has also meant local services have been put under even more pressure.
Rothschild House Group, which covers five surgeries, warned the issue resulted in several issues.
Patients were unable to visit the group’s sites in both Tring and Pitstone yesterday.
They were instead informed all appointments had been moved to Berkhamsted Surgery or would take place over the phone.
In a statement, the Rothschild House Group added: “The internet outage has also resulted in prescription requests for our Tring and Pitstone surgeries taking longer than normal to complete and this will affect the whole of this week.
The Market House in Tring Town Centre
Creative Commons Licences
“We ask that patients allow a minimum of seven working days for their request to be processed, where possible.
“Although calls to Tring are able to be answered from our other sites, there may be delays in us being able to answer them.
“Patients with urgent issues can submit an online eConsult form instead of calling, that will be reviewed in the same way by our GPs.”
Florist company Magnolia of Tring was left scrambling to ensure customers could still pay for goods as card machines were not working and phone lines went down.
The group is instead urging customers to contact them via social media or email.
Magnolia of Tring’s owner Helen Mitchell told GB News: “It’s been a major issue quite frankly. We have no internet, lots of our orders come in via our website or Interflora.
“We have no phone lines and also no credit card machines.
“So we are having to ask customers for cash, which most people do not carry or to pay directly into our bank account.”
Openreach confirmed the damage came as a "result" of rodents.
A spokesperson told GB News: "Our engineers discovered nesting rats had managed to chew through ducting, outer casing and multiple cables."
Openreach issued a subsequent update which added: "Our engineers worked through the night to repair the damage to our network caused by rodents in the Tring exchange area.
"Connectivity to the vast majority of homes and businesses affected was restored by 2am, with the last few remaining expected to be back online by late this afternoon.
"We’d like to thank anyone affected for their patience and remind anyone who continues to have problems with their broadband service after today to contact their provider."
