LONDON has been calling the people of one area of County Durham. The trouble is, the local folk wish London would go and bother somebody else.

The problem has been caused by the new inner London number (0207) which has replaced the old (0171) code.

The new code correlates a little too closely for comfort to that of the Consett and Stanley area which is (01207).

It seems dozens of people cannot help but add the digit one, common to every other of Britain's area dial codes.

That has led to one or two highly unusual conversations - like the ones Stanley woman Jean Gibson has had repeatedly during the past few weeks.

"They think they're calling the Spanish Embassy," she said. "It's usually the same people who've called before. They're usually really nice and just say sorry. It doesn't happen that often but when it does they might call two or three times." Also experiencing problems are a doctors' surgery in Craghead, near Stanley, and a solicitors' in Stanley itself.

A spokesman for The Big Number, the private company organising the London telephone number changeover, said some company switchboards automatically added the digit one, but most calls were down to "finger psychology" - people automatically dialling the digit one after the zero.