SKY Broadband and telephone customers in Wirral have been left without a connection after a massive system failure.

Customers in Bromborough, Eastham, Birkenhead, Neston, Rock Ferry, Wallasey, Claughton, Caldy, Heswall, Hoylake and Irby are just some of those affected.

Sky said a multiple exchange outage in the Northwest of England was to blame for people across Merseyside, Greater Manchester and Chester being without a service.

In a statement earlier today, Sky said: "We understand from our technical teams that the fault has been caused by complications with planned network maintenance.

“Engineers are on site and work to fix the issue is still ongoing.

“We’ll provide an update on our progress soon and we’re sorry for the continued inconvenience caused.”

The telecoms giant has since said engineers have identified the location of the fault and are working to re-patch affected fibres in order restore service to the network.

A statement said: "We will provide a further update on progress soon. We're sorry for the continued inconvenience caused."