A BT Street Hub has appeared in the middle of the pavement on Stratford High Street at the junction with Abbey Lane. The pavement's nice and wide here, even after a segregated cycleway was added ten years ago, and yet BT have somehow managed to plonk their wifi/advert gizmo in a grossly inconvenient spot bang inbetween a lamppost and some planters. This used to be a "three pushchairs abreast" pavement but BT's inconsiderate positioning has knocked that down to one, in a selfish landgrab that'll blight accessibility for years to come. What idiot at Newham council allowed this, I thought?
But I jumped to conclusions too soon because when I searched Newham's planning portal the application wasn't there. Instead this section of Stratford High Street falls under the auspices of the London Legacy Development Corporation, the post-Olympic umbrella body, despite the Olympic Park lying some way to the north. And hey presto I found all the documentation on their portal under reference 21/00517/FUL. Submitted November 2021, approved August 2022 - Full planning application for the removal of an existing BT Phone box and installation of a BT Street Hub and associated display of advertisement to both sides of the unit.
At least this was a swap rather than an unprompted assault, but still, how on earth had nobody objected? Well that's partly because almost nobody was asked - only TfL, Arup, Newham council and the LLDC themselves. Also TfL did object - this only adds to street clutter they said - but their arguments were discounted because a telephone kiosk was in place before. Indeed the chief reason this sailed through is because BT said they'd plonk their hub exactly where the kiosk used to be, in front of the planters rather than in the middle of the pavement, like so.
But what they've actually done is install it in the middle of the pavement instead. This goes against all the LLDC's agreed permissions, indeed there's nothing in the planning documentation suggesting "oh go on then, two metres to the right" was acceptable. It's possible that subsequent conversations were had, or that engineers discovered some unforeseen issue beneath the pavement, but it seems wrong to go through a strict public planning process and then ignore it, especially when this nudges your advertising portal closer to passing traffic.
This has peeved me, and will continue to peeve me every time I walk past. I shall try not to kick it.
