Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Underhand consultation on plans to scrap rural phone boxes
Yet another service in the rural areas is under threat – this time telephone boxes! I’ve been aware for a few weeks that the boxes in Church Eaton and Marston are likely to be removed, and I have already written to BT voicing my objection to the plan given that the area has such poor mobile phone coverage.
However on Saturday I received my copy of the Council’s Members Digest which contained a report from the Council’s Planning Manager setting out BT removal plans and saying that objections had to be returned by 12th July. This certainly set alarm bells ringing.
Firstly the list of telephone boxes down for removal was large, with the boxes at Haughton, Derrington, Knightly, Norbury, Outwoods, and Bromstead also included. In total 33 telephone boxes in the Borough area are down for removal!
Secondly the return date for objections given in the various boxes had already passed - 13th June and not the 12th July as was in the Council’s note. To make matters worse the notices in the box say objections should be sent to the Planning department at the Local Authority who will collate the returns. However BT don’t say who the Authority is or give the address!
So what exactly is happening? Well having now made more enquiries the whole consultation process seems to be little more than a farce! BT have given the public one set of dates and no address where the objections should be sent and the Council have completely different dates and are wondering why they have not received more that a handful of responses.
I for one just wonder whether this is complete incompetency on behalf of BT or just a cleaver scheme to insure there is little opposition the their plans!
However on Saturday I received my copy of the Council’s Members Digest which contained a report from the Council’s Planning Manager setting out BT removal plans and saying that objections had to be returned by 12th July. This certainly set alarm bells ringing.
Firstly the list of telephone boxes down for removal was large, with the boxes at Haughton, Derrington, Knightly, Norbury, Outwoods, and Bromstead also included. In total 33 telephone boxes in the Borough area are down for removal!
Secondly the return date for objections given in the various boxes had already passed - 13th June and not the 12th July as was in the Council’s note. To make matters worse the notices in the box say objections should be sent to the Planning department at the Local Authority who will collate the returns. However BT don’t say who the Authority is or give the address!
So what exactly is happening? Well having now made more enquiries the whole consultation process seems to be little more than a farce! BT have given the public one set of dates and no address where the objections should be sent and the Council have completely different dates and are wondering why they have not received more that a handful of responses.
I for one just wonder whether this is complete incompetency on behalf of BT or just a cleaver scheme to insure there is little opposition the their plans!
A complete list of all the phone boxes in Stafford Borough which are under threat can be found else where on my web-site just follow this link http://www.barrystamp.co.uk/telephoneboxes.html
# posted by Barry Stamp @ 4:45 PM 
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