RESIDENTS in Peebles and surrounding areas were once again without an EE mobile phone signal as thousands flocked to the town for Bonfire Night celebrations.

The latest problem occurred on Saturday evening, hours before the annual firework display kicked off at Victoria Park.

It prevented customers of the telecoms giant using their phones for calls or texts.

Notification of the latest outage was made via an automated EE Network Status Update email at 4.49pm on Saturday, November 4.

A further email at 7am on Sunday morning confirmed that the issue had been resolved and that services were back up and running. EE told us: “Our masts in the Peebles area were fully functional, but an issue with hardware nearby had a knock-on effect which meant mobile signal was limited.

“We are conducting an urgent audit to try to ensure our service to Peebles won’t be interrupted again. We apologise to any of our customers in Peeblesshire who were affected.”

As previously reported in the Peeblesshire News, there have been repeated problems with the signal since ‘essential maintenance’ works were carried out on the local mast on March 27 and April 18.

The situation has also been raised by Tweeddale MSP Christine Grahame (SNP).

She told the Peeblesshire News: “Several times this year I have raised concerns with EE about signal problems in the Peebles area.

“I have been advised that the problem was a mast at first, then it was other equipment, then planned repair works, then unplanned repair works.

“In short, there have been a range of technical problems affecting the signal over a relatively short period of time, most recently this past weekend.”

“EE have advised me they are very sorry for the inconvenience but I think they really owe their customers some recompense for this level of inconvenience.

“They will not discuss blanket compensation – requests for compensation must come from individual customers.

“If you are an EE customer have been affected by these signal problems in recent months, I would encourage you to contact EE by calling 150 or my office to seek compensation for the inconvenience caused to you.

“I will be writing to EE again to make them aware of my view that the service my constituents have endured is unacceptable and that I fully support legitimate claims for compensation.”

Ms Grahame added: “It is also important to remember – not to let EE off the hook, of course – that the emergency services can be reached by dialling 999, even if your network’s signal is down.

“Dialling 999 will automatically connect you to another network if your own isn’t working.”