Argument in pub and shop after telephone line felled by tree

A pub and a village shop suffered a loss of sales after a fallen branch tore through telephone lines in Norfolk.

On 14 August, strong winds damaged an oak tree in Itteringham, near Aylsham, Norfolk, blocking the road and disrupting telephone and internet services.

Staff at the Walpole Arms have resorted to setting up an internet hotspot on a mobile phone with a single bar of 4G signal to process card payments as the store is unable to operate the post office.

Openreach said it was working to fix the problem but could not say when services would be available again.

Craig Allison, co-owner of the Walpole Arms, said sales had fallen by about 50 percent since the connection was cut because customers could no longer reserve tables by phone.

He said the loss of connection had “thrown overboard” the pub’s ability to accept payments and reservations.

“(It leads to) business losses, revenue losses and trade losses,” he said.

“We are now dependent on the people passing by.”

Tess Wright, the pub’s manager, said one of the computerised cash registers was offline and the other was connected to her mobile phone via a Wi-Fi hotspot.

She said: “Our cash registers are offline… and they don’t communicate with the kitchen, so we have to fill out the receipts by hand, which is very labor-intensive.”

“We managed to get a card reader to work through this hotspot device that I connected to my phone, but it doesn’t work properly and isn’t ideal.”

She said that while customers were understanding, they sometimes had to queue to pay their bills.

The village shop and post office, both owned by the municipality, offer local credit to customers if they cannot pay cash.

A villager has lent the shop a satellite internet dish so that it can process card transactions but cannot operate the post office.

This means that the post office cannot dispense cash or accept deposits.

Rosie Hull, who works at the store, said: “We were cash only, so we couldn’t accept card payments.”

She said the team did everything they could to help people while the line was down.

“That’s what it’s about: keeping the store open and continuing to provide this vital service for the village,” she said.

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