HUNDREDS of residents and businesses across Malvern lost their telephone service on Friday.

Landlines for some 1,500 customers stopped working at around 2pm because of a fault at Worcester's main exchange.

Engineers got to work and services were restored between 3.20pm and 4pm.

BT spokesman Emma Tennant said: "We apologise for any inconvenience caused by the breakdown, caused by a hardware fault in the exchange."

Some 8,300 customers in Worcester and Malvern were affected, including the main police switchboard. For a time, it was not possible to call 999 from a landline, although it was still reachable from mobiles.