Shipton Bellinger without Vodafone or O2 for more than a month

Vodafone and O2 customers in Shipton Bellinger have not had access to a consistent mobile phone or data signal since June 26.

This outage has resulted in business owners without Wi-Fi access unable to take card payments.

Vodafone have said there are "technical issues" which the company has been unable to fix due to site access being blocked.

Helen Fletcher, owner of Ancient & Modern, is losing customers since she relies on mobile phone data to process payments and has only been able to accept cash since the outage began.

She said: "For a small business like us it’s impacting us massively; people are walking away without buying the things they want to.

"We’re losing customers and have to take cash where we can."

Helen Fletcher owns Ancient & Modern which sells "everything from antiques to vintage to jewellery and everything beyond and in between."

Helen agrees with customers when they tell her "it's not good enough", but she says there's nothing they can do about it.

"It will cost me money to get BT broadband fitted and, trying to keep costs down, we haven’t gone down that route before. We’ll either have to use a different provider or be a cash-only business," added Helen.

Residents say correspondence with the telephone providers has proved difficult.

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Councillor Susan Turner, chair of Shipton Bellinger Parish Council, says the village feels "increasingly isolated" and that it seems there is "no end to it".

She added: “It’s been over five weeks now and [the providers] keep telling us that they’re doing something about it and that we’ve got coverage, but we haven’t.

“We haven’t been told anything and that’s half the problem. We’ve not been given any information at all from the supplier, and they don’t seem to be the slightest bit interested."

For Mrs Turner, the inconsistent signal has affected her volunteering role as a bereavement helpline support worker. She said: "I’m using my dedicated mobile phone and I keep dropping calls, which is not good."

When calls drop, Mrs Turner must swap to her own personal landline, which she says can be difficult when dealing with sensitive information.

Vodafone have apologised to customers and a spokesperson for the company said: "We have been having some technical issues with one of our sites and unfortunately we’ve been unable to reach the site due to the access being blocked. 

"We’re trying to get hold of the landowner to get it cleared. 

"As soon as we do, we hope to get the site back up and running quickly."

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