Rabbits delay masts' demolition

Thousands of rabbits chewed through electrical cables

Rabbits delayed the destruction of eight British Telecom radio masts which have dominated the Warwickshire skyline for nearly 80 years.

They chewed through wires which had been laid to trigger the explosions to bring the structures down.

The 820-ft structures near Rugby provided communication links around the world since 1926, but became obsolete.

Local homes were evacuated ready for the operation, which eventually took place on Saturday night.

'Unfortunate delays'

Emma Tennant, from BT, said: "The first three came down according to plan, very smoothly and in the right direction.

"There were unfortunate delays, but all in all everything went extremely well."

The masts are a familiar sight along the M1 and A5.

Four masts will remain at the site for the foreseeable future.

Two of them support the aerial which transmits the time signal for the National Physical Laboratory's atomic clock.

The clean-up operation following the demolition is expected to take six weeks.