Abstract: In a Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH) based communications network comprising a plurality of Intermediate Systems (IS), the IS being divided between at least one IS—IS Area and at least one non-IS—IS Area, an IS—IS Area being an area within which a routeing protocol forming part of the Network Layer (Layer 3) of the Open Systems Interconnection including routeing (OSI), is provided for routeing messages between areas, a method is provided wherein static routes (Manual Adjacencies (MA) are created at IS within the IS—IS Area to point to routes to a group of one or more Network Equipments (NEs) within the non-IS—IS Area and where a failure occurs in a link to or within a group and messages from the IS—IS Area to the non-IS—IS Area are looped to the originating IS—IS Area, identification of the NEs from which messages have been looped are removed from the respective MAs allowing routeing of messages via alternative MAs.