I have some great news! As I was in the West End yesterday attending a couple of press days I decided to pop past my old friend the traditional phonebox and check in to see if there had been any change. To my great relief the phonebox has not only been cleaned, but the broken windows have also been replaced. Intriguingly when I got home and checked my email I FINALLY had a response awaiting me from Camden council. As if by coincidence the ‘public realm officer’ who emailed also went to inspect the phonebox yesterday and had emailed to say that she had followed up my complaint and all looked to be okay. Interestingly the message I received said "Camden Council are not contracted to keep phone boxes clean. This is the responsibility of such utilities companies, in this case BT". Annoyingly I haven’t had time to contact BT about this yet, so I’m very confused as to who cleaned it up! Whilst I am over the moon that the phonebox does not only no longer pose a hazard to the environment but has also been restored- part of me still wants to know why it was not done sooner and why BT and Camden Council do not work more responsibly together. Surely BT would have noticed months ago that no one was using the phone (due to not being able to get inside) so you’d think they would have sent an engineer to have a look and see if there was a problem with it. At the same time Camden Council who seem quite happy to clean around the phonebox must have noticed the problem so I wonder why they didn’t just bite the bullet and clean it themselves or at least notify BT directly – months ago. I am not trying to blame anyone as for me it isn’t about that I just find it very frustrating that no one wants to take responsibility for keeping something on our streets clean and functional unless they are pointed out to do so.
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