Openreach has apologised to Sidmouth residents who were left without internet during the coronavirus lock down yesterday.

Openreach, the organisation responsible for maintaining the area's internet services, tracked the problem down to faulty equipment at its exchange in Sidmouth.

The area's MP, Simon Jupp, took to Twitter yesterday to flag up the problem and ask Openreach to act quickly to restore broadband to the town's homes.

An Openreach spokesperson said, "In the early hours of this morning we became aware of an equipment fault at our exchange in Sidmouth. Our engineers – who have been given key worker status by the Government - were on site from 4am to try and restore service and this was done by midday today (March 30).

"The outage affected our fibre broadband service only and we apologise for any inconvenience it may have caused.

"We encourage anyone experiencing any problems with their phone or broadband service to report them in the first instance to their provider who will contact us."