A HUNGRY rodent is believed to have caused a massive telephone and computer failure at Welwyn Hatfield Council, that left staff unable to deal with residents’ enquiries for an entire day.
Workers at the council’s contact centre in Campus East were left unable to answer calls from residents for several hours on Friday morning, when a fibre optic cable was somehow severed nearby.
The phones were eventually fixed, but computer servers remained down for the rest of the day, leaving staff still unable to answer queries from callers.
A council spokeswoman said it was not clear what caused the failure, although BT workers who assessed the problem said it could have been a rodent gnawing through a fibre optic cable in College Way, next to the council office.
But it wasn’t all bad news for some staff, who decided to work from home or took flexitime to start their weekend early.
The problem was eventually resolved on Friday afternoon, after the council offices had closed.
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