At my wits end with BT - how to get leverage?

[#1]

My home phone is with BT (not Plusnet).  It developed a fault which is somewhere between the BT manhole at the end of my drive and my house.  This is about 10m in a straight line but BT say about 35m of cable.  One attempt to dig a hole and locate the fault failed as the the junction found was not mine.  So the Openreach engineer decided that the best option was to lay a new duct.  He said it should take up to 7 days.
11 days later (which would be 7 working days) a contractor turned up but because there is a large bush at the edge of my drive he thought the only possible route for the duct to follow would be under the tarmac of my drive.  He said there was not enough budget allocated to take this route and went away again.  Now I'm told that the next attempt will be on 16th August - that after waiting in all day yesterday on the promise that something might happen.
You cannot speak to Openreach directly and the part of BT tasked to do this either fails to communicate or is just given the run-around.  I am now dealing with their 'Escalation Team' but they have a don't call us, we'll call you policy.  How on earth can I speak to somebody who can bang a few heads together or even get me some sensible answers?  For example, as far as I can tell, it would be easy to lay a temporary line above-ground if you protect the short section that would cross the pavement (as the rest of the route would be under bushes).  How can I persuade BT of this? 

[#2]

You don't say whether this was a voice line fault (e.g. noise on the line) or a broadband fault, but I assume it's been logged as a voice line fault as you're writing in this forum. In that case it would be best to try the BT community forum as you have a BT home phone account - a few people have found this useful: http://community.bt.com/
But if it's affecting your broadband, and assuming you have bb with Plusnet, then perhaps you could raise it with them as well?
Not sure whether that would help much as Openreach are a law unto themselves, but maybe a two-pronged attack might be an alternative strategy?
Good luck.

[#3]

Thanks for those suggestions.  I did initially raise it with Plusnet as a broadband fault but the telephone line became increasingly noisy and completely dead after the first Openreach visit (they pulled on the cable).  It seems broadband defers to voice line in such cases and my broadband, although at 15% to 20% of normal speed, has kept going. 

[#4]

BTw's system is so sophisticated (not!) that it can only cope with one thing at a time, so while there is an active voice fault I don't believe PN will be able to raise a BB fault.

[#5]

I would advise raising that with your phone provider IF it affects your use of the phone service in any way. Otherwise do raise a broadband fault and keep us posted, we'll (DC) intervene if needed.
Adam