THE owners of a Malvern archery store are concerned they will miss the target after being without their business phone line for more than two weeks.

Dave and Janice French, who run Centre Shot in Fruitlands, Malvern, had their line cut off on Tuesday, September 18 after a cable was damaged during work on the adjacent Treetops housing development from Cala Homes.

The couple reported the fault to their service provider XLN Telecom but feel an apparent lack of action from BT has cost them dear.

Mr French said: “It’s absolutely ridiculous. We have had gas, electricity companies and whatever else digging holes on the pavement about 30 yards away.

“It’s our living, we have been building it over the years, and it has been damaged in a very short space of time. If people can’t get through they assume you are a Mickey Mouse outfit that only turns up when you feel like it.”

He added they have transferred calls to a mobile but estimates they are missing about 50 per cent of all incoming calls.

The couple have run the archery equipment and supplies business since 2000.

A spokesman for BT Openreach said their engineers were due to complete the excavation work yesterday to assess how long the work would take.

“Our priority is always to complete any repairs as quickly as we can, however work being undertaken by another organisation has caused unforeseen delays,” he said. Rachel Worthing, for Cala Homes, said: “Water services work was recently carried out by Severn Trent Water for the development and we understand that during their excavation of a public footpath outside the site boundary, a cable may have been damaged. BT is aware of the problem and will be resolving the issue.”