RESIDENTS from almost 30 flats in Church Hill feared they would be left without a television signal for several weeks after Redditch Council told them a broken communal aerial on their building would not be repaired until October 2.

The Northleach Close residents, who are a mixture of council and private tenants, depend on the communal aerial to receive a television signal and tenant Colin Badger believes it should be given a higher priority.

He said: "We've got elderly and disabled people living in the flats, we'd just like to know why it's going to take so long."

Mr Badger has been to the council's One Stop Shop to report the incident and was promised a phone call with an update on when the repairs are set to take place but so far no-one has responded to his query.

He added: "The only other option we've got is for people to go out and spend £150 on Sky," he added.

A council spokesman said: "The communal aerial is quite old and the aerial cable was damaged during a repair by the water company."

The spokesman added a contractor was scheduled to start work to replace the communcal aerial with a new digital aerial and cabling to the affected properties.