please empty your brain below
That peeves me, too. It blocks the pavement and you can't see around it. I hope your article gets in front of someone with power to get it moved back to where it ought to be (or gone altogether for the audacity).

Jayne | 12.02.23 - 8:23 a.m. | #

You can make a complaint to the planning enforcement department that it is not what was permitted and they might do something

Ian | 12.02.23 - 9:02 a.m. | #

Maybe they installed the new 'box' before they removed the old one.

mikeH | 12.02.23 - 9:06 a.m. | #

Or they couldn't bothered to remove the cabling etc. associated with the old box - because effort, and stuck it where it was less hassle.

Still Anon | 12.02.23 - 9:15 a.m. | #

I had no joy with the link to the planning permission so I used this link and inserted the reference.

dg writes: tweaked, thanks.

freddie | 12.02.23 - 9:22 a.m. | #

I do hope that we will hear more on this issue.

At our high street there were several disused commercial phone boxes, not BT, blocking up the pavement. Our council struggled to get them removed because the advertising on them generated considerable revenue.

Colin Whiting | 12.02.23 - 9:22 a.m. | #

Ugh the legislation for these is so outdated - tbh these should counted as advertising rather than “a phone booth”. [see here]

Generally speaking, BT offer to remove older phone boxes from the street to “compensate” for installation of these.

James Scantlebury | 12.02.23 - 9:43 a.m. | #

There were two concurrent planning applications, one for the box and one for the advertising. Both confirmed an off-pavement location.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 12.02.23 - 9:59 a.m. | #

The opening sentence pressaged a vintage post, and so it proved to be. If it had been me, however, I'd have been more peeved by the urgent need to re-paint the lamp-post and the dedicated cycle lane.

cau1khead | 12.02.23 - 10:08 a.m. | #

It'll get a brick through it long before you get to use your boot against it.

M | 12.02.23 - 10:13 a.m. | #

Lazy short cut cabling by contractors.

Rick | 12.02.23 - 10:15 a.m. | #

Oh for goodness sake. This sort of thing peeves me too.
Give it a kick for me as well.

Cornish Cockney | 12.02.23 - 10:57 a.m. | #

This is exactly the sort of thing local newspapers used to pick up on, with junior reporters regularly checking planning applications and highlighting inconvenience to the public or developers bending the rules. Lack of scrutiny of local issues is another blow to local democracy, so we should be grateful that at least someone spots things while out and about.

Labourer | 12.02.23 - 11:08 a.m. | #

😡

Greg S | 12.02.23 - 1:12 p.m. | #

I would have to say that one of the reasons it's there rather than in front of the planter is so the advertising can be seen on both sides rather than half-covered by the planter at the back.

They were probably hoping to sneak it through without anyone really noticing

Andy | 12.02.23 - 3:00 p.m. | #

Actually, looking at it again - the bottom of the screen is at the height of the planter, so maybe they were going for a full 360 visibility

Andy | 12.02.23 - 3:01 p.m. | #

Write to LLDC and/or Newham Council, the MP and/or local councillor - all with your photo attached. Not much effort and might just have an effect. (I believe Newham Council is the statutory highway authority - the road is not part of the TfL road network).

Peter | 12.02.23 - 3:58 p.m. | #

Any planning process seems cynical and pointless if, in practice, BT can plonk these things down where they fancy and then leave it to people to make sufficient fuss to get it moved.

We have a similar intrusion here on the Chiswick High Road, which was plonked in the middle of the pavement, just allowing the statutory clearance on each side when it should have been placed to one side. Of course, 'it blocks the pavement and you can't see around it', but that's presumably the point of an advertising structure, so it shouldn't have been allowed in the first place. But now our local council has allowed that one, again as a trade in for an old phone box, they don't have any grounds for stopping however many others, and so it goes on.

ActonMan | 12.02.23 - 5:47 p.m. | #

(hat tip to @StokeyUpdates on Twitter)

The planning application for this one would put a display board in the middle of the pavement outside the entrance to Abney Park, between the railings and Stoke Newington High Street.

See the "Heritage Assessment" for the sort of cut-and-paste blox they use to support doing this in a conservation area, including the pre-emptive quoting of an inspector's comments when considering a similar installation in Dundee (!)

"In respect of digital infrastructure and economic development, these new Street Hubs are the perfect form of infrastructure for positive change, enabling councils to collaborate and configure infrastructure to support smarter, safer and more sustainable places for residents, visitors and businesses alike."

Was there ever a phone box in that particular location, and if so when? (Nothing on Google Streetview back to 2008.)

What gives BT the right to litter the pavement with visually intrusive obstructions like this?

Andrew | 12.02.23 - 6:36 p.m. | #

It seems that these installations are intended to be more than just a large glowing advert and 'information board'. According to the planning details, they have various wifi facilities built in and a keypad of some kind on one side to replicate the traditional services of a phone box in some way. That means that, in this unit's present position, anyone trying to use it could well find themselves blocking the pavement.

ActonMan | 12.02.23 - 6:50 p.m. | #

They're nothing new - see my report from 5 years ago.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 12.02.23 - 6:57 p.m. | #

Though as you reported back then, BT were pushing the line that these new structures "..help reduce the amount of clutter on the street because they take up less space on the pavement..", not mentioning that this advantage would be somewhat negated by them plonking them right in the middle of the pavement rather than where they'd promised in their planning applications.

ActonMan | 12.02.23 - 7:39 p.m. | #

The planning permission that BT received from the LLDC REF 21/00517/FUL was (according to the decision notice) subject to the work being carried out in accordance with the submitted drawings, obviously it was not carried out as per the submitted plans so I have sent an email to the planning department at the LLDC and have requested them to take enforcement action to force BT to move the BT HUB to the approved location, any fellow readers can also send an email to complain citing planning reference number 21/00517/FUL.

fishislandskin | 12.02.23 - 9:42 p.m. | #

These have been a general headache for ages - but the planning process around them tightened up considerably over the last few years, mainly thanks to assorted rogue advertising operators really pushing a coach and horses through the definition of what was a legitimate payphone - so there should be good grounds for an enforcement case.

Wandsworth refused several proposals and won on appeal, so there is good precedent that these are subject to the same enforcement as everything else, including being built in the right place (details here ).

David | Homepage | 12.02.23 - 10:46 p.m. | #

Good luck to anyone complaining to LLDC planning enforcement, one of the most languorous public bodies I've attempted to deal with.

martin | 13.02.23 - 7:25 a.m. | #

I have in the past made two previous complaints to the LLDC planning department about unauthorised works being carried out and they have acted quite swiftly on both my reports and have taken enforcement action against the companies concerned so I am very hopeful that my complaint with regard to the BT Hub on Stratford high street will also receive the same swift action, but we shall obviously have to wait and see.

fishislandskin | 13.02.23 - 9:28 a.m. | #

If no luck, then escalate the complaint to the Planning Inspectorate or the local government ombudsman.

Petras409 | 13.02.23 - 9:30 a.m. | #

I don't think that the planning inspectorate adjudicates on failure to enforce; it is there as an appeals process for people who are denied planning permission

Ian | 13.02.23 - 10:49 a.m. | #

In vaguely related observations, when the temperature goes over 20c the fans in those things start blazing away so I'd hazard a guess that they're not particularly energy-efficient.

Dan | Homepage | 13.02.23 - 11:22 a.m. | #

BT have applied for retrospective planning permission for the Street Hub in the spot they've installed it in, citing problems with foundations in the originally proposed location.

It's 23/00096/VAR on the LLDC site, should anyone want to object.

martin | 15.03.23 - 6:43 p.m. | #

(and 23/00103/ADV for the advertising consent)

martin | 15.03.23 - 6:45 p.m. | #

The weasels are claiming the location's OK because there's a 2.8m gap between the box and the pavement, measured perpendicularly, whilst conveniently ignoring the lamppost a few centimetres further back.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 15.03.23 - 6:48 p.m. | #

To save anyone else heading down with a tape measure, there's a 1.3m gap between the box and the lamppost.

martin | 22.03.23 - 9:09 a.m. | #

LLDC have made their decision: BT have until May 5th to remove it.

dg writes: hell yes! :)

martin | 21.04.23 - 10:07 p.m. | #

But they are applying to put it back, this time 30cm in front of the originally permitted position.

dg writes: So where it shouldn’t be in anyone’s way any more.

Ben | 24.04.23 - 11:00 a.m. | #











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