PESKY squirrels are gnawing through superfast broadband cables because they taste of nuts.

Frustrated residents have spent months waiting for BT Openreach services as a result.

Engineers insist they are on the tail of the rodents as they lay eco-friendly cables in woodland.

One local near Mayfield and Five Ashes, East Sussex, said: “We are literally being driven nuts.

“Apparently the new cables have some sort of nut derivative in them.

“Not surprisingly the squirrels love the taste — and the place is crawling with them. People can see the funny side although it is quite frustrating.”

Openreach is part of British Telecom that owns and maintains the telephone equipment and exchanges that connect homes to TV and broadband.

It is laying coaxial cables across the UK.

They are made of glass and plastic and allow data to travel much more quickly than through traditional copper cables.

A BT Openreach spokesman said of the case: “This was a tough one to crack.

“But we do know that some squirrels like to sharpen their teeth on our cables and that drives our customers nuts.

“Our engineers are on their tail and if people report the damage, we won’t ig-gnaw it.

“We will do our best to get the cables fixed in no time.”

In 2014 villagers in Dolphinholme, Lancs, got so fed up with slow connections they dug a 40-mile trench and laid their own line.

They now benefit from one of the fastest broadband networks in the UK.

Last year BT was fined a record £42million by Ofcom for failing to compensate rivals when equipment critical to broadband was not provided in time.