A council has apologised to residents after one of its alarm bells rang for 61 hours over the weekend. Despite numerous calls to its emergency line, people living near York House on Andover Road in Newbury, Berkshire, were left with ringing in their ears, as they couldn’t raise any help to switch the alarm off.
They branded the council ‘an absolute joke’ on social media, reports the Local Democracy Reporting Service.
“Regrettably, the fire alarm began to sound on Friday evening and continued to do so until Monday morning, causing inconvenience to those in the surrounding area,” said a West Berkshire Council spokesperson.
“The issue arose due to a faulty alarm panel, which could not be fixed by the council’s contractors over the weekend. West Berkshire Council has out of hours arrangements in place to respond to emergency incidents and we are sorry that on this occasion these failed to operate as they should.
“We will be undertaking an investigation into this incident and have already put in place additional arrangements at York House. We have also written directly to residents who were affected by the incident to say sorry and to offer our reassurance that all possible steps will be taken to avoid a recurrence.”
