PEOPLE living in Worcester have had their telephones cut off for 48-hours during maintenance work on an electricity cable.

Up to 20 homes and business in Wyld's Lane have been left with no communications since GPU carried out repairs to a high voltage cable on Thursday.

Workers who cut through the telephone wire rang British Telecom (BT) several times, but the phone giant said the earliest they could send anyone out was today.

"This delay isn't on - I've lost a lot of business, especially as I'm busier towards the end of the week," said Flavia Ceci, owner of Flavia Hair Salon.

Most of the hairdresser's custom comes from phone calls. She said that one lady phoned just before the lines went down around noon, but she believes many valued customers have not got through.

"My husband's an electrician and he feels he could easily have twisted the wires back together to fix the phone network," she added.

"It's just annoying that with any maintenance work it takes one company to complete one job, who then have to wait for another company to carry out another."

Other disgruntled residents were also left angered at the lack of progress in fixing the problem.

One elderly woman, whose husband works away, said she felt very vulnerable in not being able to contact him.

"I have a lot of family living all over the country. I'm really annoyed because I've been unable to speak to my son in London," she said.

A spokesman for BT confirmed the company was aware of the damage and had responded as quickly as possible to the problem.

"It's a major task that involves sending out a team to knit together the phone cable. Each individual strand of wire has to be linked up to the correct household," he said.