The telephone regulator, Ofcom, has set out new rules for the protection of rural phone boxes like ours in Luccombe. But they need to demonstrate that there is a need and no alternative. Luccombe Parish Council has sent the letter below to Ofcom to state the village’s need for the phone box.

But anyone in the village can submit a response to the consultation by sending an email to telephonyUSO@ofcom.org.uk

Responses should be sent to Ofcom by 11 January 2022

The consultation document can be read here on the Ofcom website

LUCCOMBE PARISH COUNCIL

21 November 2021
The Office of Telecommunications
London

Dear Sir or Madam.

Luccombe Parish Council and the people of Luccombe consider it vital that they halt British Telecom’s plan to remove the public telephone box from the village primarily for reasons of safety and security.

Using spurious consultations, devious stratagems and outright lies, British Telecom has twice, in the past two years (and once in previous years) attempted to remove the kiosk and the telephone service and were only stopped from doing so through a determined campaign by the parish council and the residents of Luccombe.

Luccombe wishes to retain its telephone box for the following reasons:

  1. Despite British Telecom’s deception, Luccombe has no mobile telephone signal whatsoever. Ofcom is at fault in this regard by making no independent appraisal of the information about mobile phone coverage submitted to them by mobile phone providers much of which is greatly exaggerated.
  2. At least two attempts to install mobile phone antennae have been thwarted by planning/environmental issues. There is currently no prospect at all that Luccombe will have a mobile phone signal.
  3. In an emergency, the public telephone box may be the only available link to the emergency services.
  4. Luccombe is a comparatively remote village on Exmoor that can be subject to serious rural emergencies including being cut off by snow and flooding, moorland and forest fires.
  5. Luccombe is an agricultural area – a recent fire on agricultural equipment and the injury of the operator demonstrates how important a public phone service is.
  6. Luccombe has large numbers of visitors and is subject to “recreational emergencies” among walkers, cyclists, runners, horse riders etc. who would not be able to call emergency services in the event of accidents because there is no mobile service.
  7. In the event of a power cut when domestic, digital landline phones will not work, the public phone may be the only link to the emergency services.
  8. Luccombe has a high proportion of elderly residents for whom the reassurance of the public telephone service is important.
  9. The location of the phone kiosk in Luccombe is a conservation area within the Exmoor National Park. There are aesthetic reasons for retaining the phone box at the heart of the village. Exmoor National Park has sought listed building status for the Sir Gilbert Scott kiosk.

Given that British Telecom has thrice attempted to remove the phone box, this is now the fourth time that the reasons for retaining the telephone box have had to be articulated using the same arguments about the safety and security of the village. It simply should not be necessary for the case to have to be made again and again and again.

Luccombe Parish Council is the relevant public authority and has repeatedly made it plain and the residents of Luccombe have also expressed the view that there is a need to retain the public phone service and that they also wish to retain the phone kiosk.

Please consider this a submission to the consultation “Review of the telephony universal service obligation” and a plea by the village of Luccombe for Ofcom to support the retention of the public telephone service in Luccombe and protect the village from the continual attempts by British Telecom to shirk its universal service obligation by providing and maintaining the service.

We attach copies of a letter to the Chief Executive of British Telecom and other correspondence that make the case of Luccombe Parish Council for the retention of the telephone box. We also attach copies of newspaper articles and web pages that formed part of the campaign to preserve the service and a press release from the areas MP, Ian Liddell-Grainger calling for the matter to be resolved.

Yours sincerely,
Henry Harington
Chairman
Luccombe Parish Council