I’ve recently been reporting a number of telephone exchange cupboards with missing doors (see picture). Not only are they pretty ugly without the doors but it leaves all the wires exposed and presumably vulnerable to damage.
This prompts the question as to why do the doors go missing in the first place? One suggestion is that people could be stealing the doors to sell as scrap metal. This seems ridiculous – but you do read about high metal prices causing these kinds of thefts.
This box on Ossian Road near Ferme Park Road was fixed a few days ago after I reported it to Haringey Council. I’ve also reported another one in Denton Road. If you spot any please contact me and I’ll try to get them sorted. Also- please contact me if you have a better explanation as to why they go missing.
September 3rd, 2009 at 9:10 pm
Glad to see that councillors on both sides of the borough are tackling this problem. I often report missing and damaged phone cabinet doors in my ward. I asked a Virgin Media engineer who was repairing a cabinet. He said they were getting both doors and cables stolen.
Can I suggest that, initially, residents report the damage to the phone company. And then contact their councillor if they get no response.
Alan Stanton
Tottenham Hale ward councillor
September 5th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
I believe Cllr Alan Stanton’s covered phone cabinets at some length:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/alanstanton/tags/phonecabinet/
September 7th, 2009 at 8:41 am
Same problem south of the river:
http://www.brianrobson.org.uk/category/virgin-media/
I’ve had a Virgin Media technician comment on my blog to say “The cabinets are easily damaged and we struggle to close a lot of them. People often rip the doors off and then hide it so we can’t put it back on. we have some more modern cabinets which are much better, but it is always a battle to secure these cabinets.”
I generally find they do get repaired (eventually) but it’s a huge dereliction of their responsibility to neighbourhoods that contribute thousands of pounds to their bottom line.