Lambourn’s last payphone to be axed

Lambourn was disconnected from Internet and mobile telephone services recently leaving residents unable to make emergency calls. Yet BT plans to axe the last public phone box in Lambourn. It could be the difference between calling the emergency services and a disaster however this argument seems to hold no sway with the Telecoms giant. There is a petition by residents to retain the call box.

The call box, located in Newbury Street in Lambourn will be decommissioned and removed, Angela Pritchard from BT Voice Services confirmed to Lambourn.Org:

“I have made enquiries for you and unfortunately, we plan to remove this payphone which is on private land. I don’t have a specific date for the removal, however, a task will be raised with our contractors in the coming months.”

The removal signals the end of public payphones in Lambourn. The Lambourn area used to have call boxes located in Woodbury, Oxford Street, Newbury Street, Upper Lambourn as well as in Eastbury and many residents recalled how they used the payphones regularly. In an era where many have a mobile telephone and few carry cash, the payphone is used seldom however can still be a lifeline in the event of an emergency.

“Some of the call boxes we plan to protect are used to make relatively low numbers of calls,” Ofcom’s Director of Connectivity Selina Chadha told AP. “But if one of those calls is from a distressed child, an accident victim, or someone contemplating suicide, that public phone line can be a lifeline at a time of great need… We also want to make sure that people without mobile coverage, often in rural areas, can still make calls.”

Ofcom is proposing clearer, stronger rules to safeguard a phone box against removal, if any of four criteria applies:

• its location is not already covered by all four mobile networks; or
• it is located at an accident or suicide hotspot; or
• more than 52 calls have been made from it over the past 12 months; or
• exceptional circumstances mean there is a need for a public call box.

A petition by residents in 2020 was submitted and the kiosk was saved. Lambourn Parish Council confirmed that they are informed annually of the threat to remove the kiosk and have argued strongly to retain it. The petition is still open and will be resubmitted to BT, however it is likely that this will be too late to save the kiosk.

Residents have suggested converting the phone to a defibrillator station or other public service purposes. This seems an unlikely option because the Newbury Street kiosk is located on private land, owned by BT.

Lambourn.Org writes to Howard Woollaston, West Berks Councillor for the area, and Laura Farris, MP responsible for Lambourn:

Dear Howard,
You will be very much aware that Lambourn has a single point of failure for communications and the recent service interruption showed how one cable being severed can disconnect Lambourn entirely from Internet as well as mobile communication. 
I have been fighting to retain the last telephone box in the valley of the racehorse for just such an occasion. Imagine if there had been an accident and emergency services were unable to be contacted because mobile communications have been cut – the lifeline would’ve been a 999 call from a public phone box. Now, BT are planning to remove the very last telephone box from the value of the racehorse despite a petition and pleading. 
Will you and West Berks Council put a stop to this and preserve what is a lifeline for residents of your parish?
Yours
Christian Noll