Telewest Communications has held an urgent meeting with Bradford Council about a blunder which left 15,000 digital customers without a service.

Contractors carrying out roadworks for the Council in Hall Ings wiped out television and telephone lines for thousands of homes after cutting through a live cable on Sunday. A separate line serving the authority's own City Hall telephone network was also severed.

Telewest, owners of Yorkshire Cable, say it followed normal procedures by sending detailed maps to the Council once it was notified about the planned work.

But the company did not receive confirmation that the job was going ahead, and only found out about the problem from its monitoring equipment on Sunday morning.

The firm has now met council officers to try to establish what went wrong.

A spokeswoman said: "Like other utilities Telewest complies with the new road and street works act, and our internal investigations have concluded that we provided all the information required, including a map of where our cables are laid.

"We have no contact from contractors directly, and only the Council can comment on the information the contractors were given. We will continue to work alongside the Council to ensure there is no repeat of such an incident in the future."

The company said it was impossible to estimate the loss in business as a result of the mistake, which would only be gauged if any customers cancelled their subscriptions.

A Telewest maintenance team worked flat out to get most homes reconnected by 10pm on Sunday - too late for Bradford Bulls fans to see the team's televised victory against Warrington Wolves in the Rugby League Challenge Cup semi-final.

A Council spokeswoman said she could not comment on the details of what had happened because it would pre-empt the findings of an ongoing investigation.

"This matter is now being investigated," she said. "Everything possible was done to put things right as soon as possible and all services have now been restored."