MORE than 300 homes and businesses lost their phone lines and internet service after underground cables were deliberately damaged.

Shops and homes in the Clifftown Road area of Southend have been cut off after someone cut through cables.

It left businesses unable to process card payments and customers unable to book appointments and the problems are set to continue for another few days.

Among those affected are Woo hairdressers and Ravens gift and fashion store.

Sam Bright, owner of Woo, said: “It has meant a big loss of business. Our cardmachine isn’t working, so we are having to ask people to bring cash.

We’ve managed to divert our landline to a mobile, but the line is bad. We can’t take any online bookings and we’ve had to resort to social media to keep in touch with customers.

“They are not giving us any information and we’ve no idea what the problem is.”

Ravens’ owner Neil Raven said: “It’s a blow. We can’t take credit or debit cards. We have two phone lines and an internet line down. It’s a real issue. People say they will go and get cash, but they don’t all come back.

“We have many loyal customers who are fully supportive, but it is affecting our business.”

A spokesman for BT said: “We have suffered malicious, third party damage to underground cabling which is affecting some services.

“Engineers will be working as quickly as they can to get repairs completed as quickly as possible.

“We have also arranged traffic management to allow safe conditions for these engineering works.

“We hope by the early part of next week that the first lines will slowly start to return to services, but there is a great deal of complex and timeconsuming work to do.

“It is likely to be the end of the week before all are restored back into service.’’