Bungling Openreach engineers cut off the internet for several residents of a Bedfordshire street yesterday - the day the government advised people to work from home.

Engineers arrived at a previously dug hole to resolve a long-standing issue with landlines. But Instead of fixing the fault, they accidently disconnected the broadband service, before disappearing.

This morning, different engineers visited the Shillington site to fill in the same hole, unaware of complaints to internet providers Talk Talk that broadband services were still down.

The blunder is the latest in a list of engineer errors.

Three digs have taken place at the same site recently to reconnect phonelines, engineers working for a couple of hours before leaving fenced-off holes in the pavement unattended for days at a time.

After months of failed attempts to fix the problem, residents were informed the third dig was in the wrong place. A fourth dig is booked in 10 metres down the road - on the same spot as digs one and two.

One resident said: “Does anyone have any idea what they are digging for? Buried treasure?”

An Openreach spokesperson said: “Repairing underground network is not always straightforward and you don’t know exactly what you’re dealing with until you start work. We’ve had a few issues here in terms of locating the fault as quickly as we normally would and we’re really sorry for the disruption this has caused.

“We do genuinely understand how frustrating it must be for local people to be without their home broadband.

“This work is a priority for us and we’re hoping to get engineers out this week. We’re confident we can then resolve these issues for good.”