National Highways has admitted motorway phones were out of action on stretches of motorway across England on Christmas Day.

It says it fixed the matter within hours, but that phones in the north east, north west, East Midlands and parts of the east of England were affected in the early hours.

Jon Allen, the national network manager at National Highways, told the Daily Telegraph: “On Monday (Dec 25) we experienced some technology issues with our emergency roadside telephones. This was investigated and resolved as a priority within a matter of hours.

“Road users could still call our customer contact centre for assistance using their mobile phone.

“Our traffic officers actively patrolled our road network and would stop and go to the assistance of any vehicle breakdown they came across while our control room operators continued to monitor the network using CCTV.”

(Picture – National Highways)