VIRGIN MEDIA have blamed residents in a Dunfermline street for the failure to connect customers up to a new supply.

Roads and pavements were dug up in the Headwell and Baldridgeburn areas as the firm laid fibre broadband cables to offer faster internet speeds and TV entertainment packages to homes in the area.

But when prospective new customers in High Beveridgewell agreed to ditch their current supplier and sign up for Virgin Media services, they were then told they couldn't be connected after all.

One resident, who asked not to be named, explained: "They dug up the pavements along the whole street and the salesmen came round and persuaded us to switch over, agreeing an installation date for this week.

"But they have now come back and said that they can't do it as they can't connect us to the supply.

"I'm not sure of the technical aspects but whatever they've done, it's not been done properly as not all of the cables seem to be connected.

"I don't know if that means they have to dig up the road again but we had already started with the process of cancelling with our existing internet provider and now we can't switch over.

"I know one of our neighbours had cancelled with BT and after the problems with Virgin Media they then went back to BT, probably because they were so annoyed.

"We're now told it might be connected by April 1 but there's no guarantee."

A Virgin Media spokesperson said: “During the process of carrying out network expansion works on High Beveridgewell, some residents’ vehicles parked in the area restricted us from connecting all premises to our network.

"This is despite informing residents of our works.

"We are hoping that we will be able to connect any remaining premises to our network in the near future.”

Told that residents were to blame for the delay, the homeowner said: "That sounds like absolute nonsense to me.

"It's only our side of the street that can't get connected, the other side of the street is fine apparently, but cars don't park on this side of the street so there was no problem digging up the pavement.

"Any time we were asked to move our car, we did.

"And if there was a problem, why did they go ahead and try and sell us a package they knew we couldn't get?"

Virgin Media announced last summer that 4,200 homes in the Headwell and Baldridgeburn areas of Dunfermline were next to benefit from an "ultrafast broadband and entertainment boost".

As part of its Project Lightning network expansion programme, the firm is expanding its ultrafast broadband network across Scotland and promising speeds of up to 350Mbps for residents and small businesses.

It said the work would "transform" the quality of broadband in the town, where the average download speed was 21.5Mbps, with the result that files, films and games would become "unbelievably quick to stream, download and upload".