A NUISANCE tree has been blamed for the mobile phone blackout in Mauchline.

Customers of mobile giant 02 in Mauchline had no mobile phone signal for four weeks - meaning anyone under an O2 contract, including businesses, were left unable to make or receive phone calls and texts.

After the Chronicle became involved, the signal was restored - but lasted only a couple of days.

When the phones died again, the Chronicle approached the company again - and were told that a tree near their mast was causing the problem.

Engineers for the phone provider felt that the tree had to be cut back or removed to stop it from breaking the signal.

However, they were having difficulties in obtaining permission from the landowner to trim the tree.

Finally, agreement was reached and the troublesome timber was removed - giving Mauchline a series of full bars on their mobiles aghain.

A spokesperson for O2 said: “Our third party suppliers were able to bring forward their meeting and the landlord has now given permission to cut down the tree that has been causing intermittent issues with the signal – we’re waiting to find out the date on which that will happen.” One local business badly effected by the blackout was Milligan’s Coach Travel.

Company Secretary, Morag Milligan said she’d had enough after the latest failure and complained to O2, who told her that to get out of her contract she would have to cough up almost £130 in termination fees.

O2 later corrected this, giving her a month’s free landline and waiving any termination fees owed.

Morag’s business, however, was still badly hampered during the 'blackout’.

She previously told the Chronicle: “It’s been causing us a real headache over the last few weeks. It’s fine during office hours because from nine until five anyone can get us on the landline but when the office is shut all we have are the O2 mobiles.

“It’s a real inconvenience when our drivers can only contact us from nine until five”.