Pink Dog

How’s Richard Branson doing with my New Year wish?

I wrote to Richard Branson with my New Year wish on 31st December, asking not much really:

It’s a simple request really. There’s a utility box of yours that’s sat on pavement and been badly broken for months. Having passed it a few times myself, I finally got round to reporting it five months ago. Since then I’ve sent a fair few emails, I’ve been promised this has been raised with your firm, I’ve been told you’ve missed the legal deadline for responding, I’ve sent more emails. And you know what? That broken, badly damaged box at the corner of Hornsey Lane and Crouch End Hill in north London is still there.

One month on, how is he and his team doing?

They win brownie points for responding promptly and keeping in touch regularly and efficiently.

But then they lose all those brownie points because the box is still broken, even though during the month Virgin Media says it sent staff to site who recorded that everything had been fixed. It hadn’t.

Then Virgin Media’ loses some more brownie points because it turns out the broken utility box outside my place of work is also a Virgin Media oneĀ (started chasing in August, still broken – though many of those months have gone on wild goose chases as Westminster Council has pointed me at TfL and BT and not been too bothered about contradicting itself and its own failure to use its legal powers, but that’s another blog post).

Oh, and then Virgin Media loses even more brownie points, because it turns out that the broken utility box I spotted off Stroud Green Road is a Virgin Media one too and, guess what, they missed their deadline for fixing that one too.

Virgin Media give the appearance of taking faulty utility boxes seriously and, as I said, the person dealing with me seems helpful and efficient. But overall? Please do try harder Mr. Branson.

After all, we the public let you use up public space for your cabinets which you then make profits out of. Keeping good care of them is, apart from the legal requirements, just good manners.

Here’s hoping…

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