Broken cables have left thousands across Essex with restricted Sky broadband.

Residents in Chelmsford, Braintree, Witham, South Woodham Ferrers and Maldon are among those affected by the outage, which has been caused by damage to fibre cables in a field near the Basildon exchange. 

Affected areas include Billericay, Blackmore, Burnham on Crouch, Chelmsford, Coggeshall, Coxtie Green, Danbury, Downhall, Eastwood, Great Baddow, Great Dunmow, Hadleigh, Hawkwell, Kelvedon, Latchingdon, Leigh on Sea, Maldon, Marine, North Benfleet, Orsett, Rayleigh, Rochford, Shalford Green, Shoeburyness, Southend, Southminster, Thaxstead, Thorpe Bay, Tiptree, Witham and Writtle.

Repair work continues today and, according to an update issued at 12pm, services to Broomfield, Felstead, Great Wakering, Hullbridge, Ingatestone, Little Waltham, Ongar and Woodham Ferrers have been restored. 

A Sky spokesman said: "We’re aware of an issue currently affecting Broadband and Talk services in the North London, Essex and East Anglia areas.

"We want to assure customers that our engineers have worked through the night, and continue to work to restore services as soon as possible over the course of today.

"We’re sorry for any inconvenience caused.” 

A statement posted on the SKY website at 12pm said: "The latest news we have is that repair work is still on-going but we do expect all services to be gradually restored throughout the day.

"We understand this is frustrating for you and we're sorry for the continued inconvenience caused."

UPDATE: 1.45pm 

A SKY Spokesman said: "Engineers have been working to repair the broken fibre cables and we're pleased to confirm services have now been restored at all exchanges."