Mark Pack

Empty pavement, Westminster

Phew. After seven months and involving Westminster Council, the GLA, Transport for London, Virgin Media and BT the broken utility box outside my place of work finally has been removed.

In the end it was a BT box, despite BT previously coming to inspect it and saying it wasn’t, and Westminster Council variously insisting it was a TfL or a Virgin Media box.

Thank you to those in BT who finally sorted it. Thanks too to those in Virgin Media who came, who saw and who rightly said “not us gov”.

A few thanks to those in TfL who came, who saw and who said “not us gov” – but who also mislaid the messages from Westminster Council when Westminster was in its “it’s TfL” phase. Thanks to GLA member Caroline Pidgeon for stepping in to ensure TfL looked at the box despite these lost messages.

And Westminster Council? Well, failing to respond to correspondence is not so good. Repeatedly providing wrong information is poor. Not expressing concern when it’s been pointed you that you’ve been providing wrong information is underwhelming.

Having different members of staff members of staff simultaneously providing contradictory information  is unlikely to be in anyone’s management best practice handbook. Not knowing the law is far from ideal. Especially when the relevant part of the law directly gives you a legal power.

But hey: regularly sending out emails which can’t be replied to and ask for replies to be sent to an address that doesn’t work is just plain stylish.

And who really, at heart, can’t praise a local council which so persistently over eight months found so many inventive ways to keep that broken utility box in place?

Meanwhile, in other good news: this is no ordinary bollard.