BUSINESSES in the Darlington area are missing out on millions of pounds worth of business by failing to provide telephone access to deaf people, a survey has found.

According to the Royal National Institute for the Deaf (RNID), businesses in the town are failing to reach the region's deaf market place, which is worth about £14.5m every year.

Lorna Hammerstein, head of customer service at the RNID's Typetalk service, said: "In Darlington alone there are around 17,000 people who are deaf, hard of hearing, deafened or deaf-blind.

"This is a huge chunk of our population excluded from buying products and services over the telephone, purely because the vast majority of businesses are completely incapable of handling calls from these customers.

"Added to this is the current trend towards recorded messages, which completely exclude textphone users."

Telephone banking and leisure outlets feature highly on the list.

A typetalk system enables users to call a hearing person by adding a prefix that alerts an operator to join the line if a hearing person answers.

The service also offers on-site training for businesses keen to learn about taking calls from deaf people.

For details telephone 0800-7311-888.