Eden residents are being urged to Have Their Say in response to British Telecom's (BT) proposal to close 44 public phone boxes in the the District. The council is co-ordinating the public consultation on the proposals and will forward the District's representations to BT. Residents and interested parties are invited to comment before Friday 18July 2008 on the proposed closures.
The goal is to focus the public's response to the proposal to close 44 public phone boxes in the District on the following areas: The housing type in the area: Areas of lower income housing, predominantly rented and Local Authority Housing, are less likely to have access to a landline phone or mobile phones. The number of households in the area: The catchment area for a phone box can be considered as the households within 400 metres. This, however, will not take into account passing traffic such as those on a busy road and therefore each payphone should be assessed on a site by site basis. Emergency use: Data is not available for emergency calls but in our consideration of this form of use we must also consider the available alternatives for making emergency calls in the area, e.g. adjacent dwellings, public services and mobile phone coverage. Payphones in locations that have potential to be close to accidents, such as at busy road junctions, may warrant retention on this basis. Mobile phone coverage: Poor or sporadic mobile network coverage can be an important factor in our consideration. The network coverage of four main network operators, O2, Orange, T-Mobile and Vodafone, are being examined.
These responses will be considered by the Council's Portfolio Holder for Community Services, Councillor Mary Robinson. The Portfolio Holder will then make a preliminary decision based on the evidence received which will be publicised for a further month allowing those who are interested to make further comments where appropriate. The Council's newly formed Cabinet will then be expected to make the final decision on the response to the closures on Tuesday 2 September 2008.
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