Villagers left without internet access for two weeks have slammed BT for lack of effort to fix it.

Around 150 houses in Hade Edge lost internet access on December 20 and some are still not re-connected two weeks later.

Richard Hawley, who is one of them, said: “It was on December 20 when Openreach were trying to move the internet service from one cabinet to another site closer to the village.

“It meant they had to cut everyone off for three days but it’s now nearly two weeks later and some houses are still without internet access.

“It seems to be Sky customers still affected. BT and Plusnet, owned by the BT group, have looked after their own customers who are re-connected.

“Sky are trying to get them to class it as a major outage but they won’t do so they say the standard response time is five working days.”

Hade Edge neighbors, who run businesses from home, Richard Hawley (right) and Alex Malkin who are angry as the village has had no broadband or 3G service for weeks.

He estimates that at least 11 households remain without internet access but the figure could be as high as 20.

He said failings in boosting connectivity to the village date back to 2011 when BT were given a grant by Kirklees Council to provide fibre broadband to the area.

He said they put the cabinet too far away from the village for everyone to benefit and that internet speeds ranged from 2-8mb for a third of the village, 18-20mb for another third and the remaining struggle to access it.

At a previous meeting with BT bosses villagers were told the box, off Scholes Moor Road, could be moved closer to the houses but they may have to contribute £10,000 to £15.000 towards it - though nothing has come from that.

Mr Hawley added: “They were given money to provide fibre broadband to us but they put the cabinet too far away. They haven’t done what they were given money to do in my mind.

“People have lost internet access over Christmas, can’t do their online shopping, connect with family or play on games consoles and because mobile data is so poor people have struggled to communicate.

“I’ve had to delay work projects and others can’t work because of this. I’ve been down there twice today and they’re still not working on it.”

Later on Tuesday he saw BT workers in the village working on something unconnected.

An Openreach spokesperson said: “We’re really sorry that some residents in Hade Edge have experienced the loss of broadband service, especially over the festive period. We are trying to improve the broadband speed in the area and have unfortunately encountered some technical difficulties. We are working as quickly as we can to restore service as soon as possible.”

They didn’t explain why BT customers had been connected but not Sky, nor commented on the grant issue or location of the original box.