Mystery over key fob blackspot

It has been described as the "twilight zone" – with dozens of drivers falling victim to mysterious goings-on.

Mystified motorists in a suburb of Wolverhampton have been left dumbfounded by their misfiring car key fobs, which have started to regularly fail – but work perfectly as soon as they leave the area.

Clueless as to what is causing the problem, the Penn residents are speculating that radio signals from nearby mobile phone masts are overpowering the signals from their keys.

But with an industry expert today refuting the claim, they are no closer to finding out why their key fobs are misfiring.

Self-employed gardener Darren Cowan, who lives in Mount Road, says the key fob for his Nissan X-Trail is often disabled when he tries to lock the car after parking up at home.

He says the mechanism has also failed in Pinfold Lane, around a mile away, while his partner Kay Sedgwick has experienced the same issue with her Ford pick-up truck.

Ilana Clark, health and science specialist at Cornerstone which handles phone mast applications for mobile phone firms Vodafone and O2, said it was "highly unlikely" the problem was due to interference from that source. "All Vodafone base stations are compliant to the European Commission regulations on electrical interference," she said.