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Dear BT: This callbox really does exist. Now go on .. do us a favour and make it disappear
BY MATTHEW TAYLOR SOMEONE somewhere has got their wires crossed...
Residents have spent the past five years trying to get a derelict phone box repaired or removed.
But since vandals ripped out the phone inside they say it has disappeared from official BT lists – leaving just a shell that no one wants.
Now residents in Wortley, Leeds, have named it the 'ghost phone box' and local councillor Claire Nash has taken up the fight.
"Despite all attempts by locals, traders and councillors to have it repaired or removed, the pay phone is still standing – years after it was trashed by vandals," said Coun Nash (Green, Wortley).
"The problem is that this phone box does not seem to officially exist. I contacted the BT call line myself three times, then wrote to BT High Level Complaints, who promised to see to it urgently.
"I followed that with another letter and a phone call when nothing happened. Yet here it still is, nearly three years after it was first vandalised."
The pay phone at Whingate junction in Wortley was used as a base for drug dealers, then three years ago the phone was ripped out and locals launched a campaign to have the eyesore removed.
Workers
"The problem appears to be that there is no pay phone in it, so we can't give the old phone number, only the location at Whingate junction.
Their records no longer show a phone at this location so their workers repeatedly go to another phone box, half a mile down the road.
"So far as BT are concerned, it has already gone. So, please BT, it is still here – could we have it removed?"
A spokesman for BT said: "Off the cuff I do not know anything about this box, not even that it is one of ours. However, we will send someone out to inspect it and find out what is happening."
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Sunday 12 February 2012
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