Shropshire Council issues final view on 75 BT payphones proposed for removal
Shropshire Council has issued its final view and Final Notice for the 75 payphones in the Shropshire area that BT proposed to permanently remove from service.
BT had an obligation to consult with Shropshire Council with regard to the proposed removals. The formal 90-day consultation period, as set out by Ofcom, concluded on 19 December 2019.
A red payphone box in Shropshire
The final notice listing was submitted to the Secretary of State at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and to BT, on 18 December 2019. This was in order to ensure that it was received by BT before 19h December 2019, as per agreement with BT on timescales for so doing, and that DCMS had a copy of the final decision reached by the Council on each payphone, as per Ofcom guidance.
The listing is available at https://shropshire.gov.uk/shropshire-council/bt-payphones/
Where the council did not hear back from a local community, following Newsroom stories, contact with the local parish council or town council, and publicity through the Shropshire Voluntary and Community Sector Assembly, we reached a decision on behalf of the local community. This was based on: analysis of previous call usage and previous concerns noted, including operability of telephony; assessment of the location eg rural isolated spot, eg known to attract numbers of visitors, eg in an area of social need; and continuing concerns for the council over mobile phone coverage issues in our large rural county.
This sits alongside our default position of objecting to removal of the telephony in order to seek to ensure continuation of the service for residents and visitors alike.
Gwilym Butler, Shropshire Council’s Cabinet member for communities, place planning and regulatory services, said:
“I would like to say a very sincere thank you on behalf of the council to all those who took the time to respond to us with regard to these 75 payphones. We are enormously grateful to have received such a range of feedback over the course of the public consultation, not only from parish councils and town councils but also from the public and local Shropshire Councillors.
“This has helped us to reach a final decision for each of the 75 payphones, whether that is for adoption of the kiosk, where several areas wish to turn them into defibrillator storage points, removal of the payphone where it is no longer seen as necessary, or retention of the service, where it is seen as continuing to fulfil a social and community need.
“BT have acknowledged receipt of the information, and have asked for us to send them the details of the parish councils and town councils who indicated that they wanted to adopt their kiosks, in order for these applications to then proceed. They have said that this is duly noted and summarised as 14 agreements, 49 objections and 12 adoptions. We will continue to liaise with them accordingly. In the meantime, thank you again to all those who responded.”
Further information
Shropshire Council, in accordance with section 49(4) of the Communications Act 2003 (’the Act’), made a final decision in each case in response to the proposal by BT for the removal of the 75 public call boxes. Section 50(1)(b) of the Act requires Shropshire Council to send to the Secretary of State a copy of every notification published under section 49(4) of the Act. A copy of the Final Notification was enclosed accordingly along with a formal letter.
During the formal 90 day consultation period, the task of the council as the Local Planning Authority was to seek views from local town and parish councils and to include any views from local councillors, residents, policing teams, and so forth, in order to help in reaching a decision in each case as to whether to consent to removal of the service and kiosk; Object in order to keep the service operational, or consent to removal of the telephony and retention of the kiosk itself where the local parish or town council wish to adopt.
The initial views, known as the First Notification, were copied to the relevant Government department on 14 November 2019 in line with the formal direction from Ofcom. The minimum one month consultation period, for any further comments on the draft view, then took us up to 4pm on the 16 December 2019. The final deadline was Thursday 19 December 2019.
The number for which the council’s final view is to consent to removal of the service and the kiosk stands at 14, with a further 12 where the local community wishes to adopt the kiosk. This is an update on the provisional view, in which the council declared that the number for which we were minded to give consent to removal altogether stood at two, and that the number where the local community wished to adopt stood at 10.
The stated starting position of Shropshire Council, as a predominantly rural county with a dispersed population, remains to Object to removal of telephony at kiosks unless local feedback suggests otherwise, due to concerns over things like emergency access, physical access where the next nearest payphone may be some distance away for those with mobility problems, and concerns over consistency and quality of mobile phone coverage.
Equally, the council will always look to consider factors in favour of removal of the payphone where the views of the local community are that its use is no longer warranted, or that adoption would be a better option in that area, perhaps for defibrillator storage, or because there has been repeated vandalism or misuse of the kiosk.
For more details, please click the link to see the final listing and other resources on the website at https://shropshire.gov.uk/shropshire-council/bt-payphones/
The listing is also going to clerks for all town and parish councils and to members of the Shropshire Voluntary and Community Sector Assembly.
Online resources include details about what to do if a local parish council or town council wants to think about adopting the kiosk for a use such as a defibrillator store. Individuals are not permitted to adopt kiosks, but they can also be adopted by community organisations.
There is also advice from the historic environment team about what can or cannot be done if the kiosk is a listed structure, and how to ask if there are queries about conservation considerations.
