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Babergh District Council has reacted quickly to proposals by BT to close 43 phone boxes in its area - by encouraging parish and town councils to help it save those that local people want to see retained.
BT has embarked on a 90-day period of consultation which is due to end on 2 July 2008. BT has stated that it intends to remove all the phone boxes on the list as soon as practicable after this date - unless a good case can be made as to why a phone box should not be removed.
The Office of Communications (Ofcom), the telecommunications regulator, has established the rules about what has to happen before a phone box can be removed. Babergh’s role, like that of other district and borough councils, is to co-ordinate responses from parish and town councils and other community groups to give them a chance to pull together pertinent reasons why any of the threatened boxes should remain in working order.
Babergh is writing to these groups explaining the bases upon which BT might be persuaded to relent and not remove a particular facility. The Council is advising that arguments for retaining phone boxes could include the need for emergency calls, the lack of good mobile reception, the convenient location of existing phone boxes and the number of households in the area that might have cause to use such a facility.
“Babergh is determined that local communities have the chance to voice their views on such a matter. For some it may not be a major issue. For others the loss of their phone box may cause real worry and hardship and we are determined to help these put their case to BT as effectively as possible” explained Neil Henry, Economic & Community Development Manager.
“We will do everything we can to help parishes and towns and other groups build a convincing case to stop BT axing any of the 43 phone boxes – if that is what they want us to do” he added.
Babergh has asked that any initial views be sent to the Council by 23 May so that the Council can identify and contribute further information to make each individual case to save a phone box as robust as possible. Full list of pay phones under threat (PDF, 298kb)
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