Post by Madhatter on Jul 20, 2008 19:30:18 GMT
To many, the traditional red telephone box is a welcome sight and an iconic British design that ought to be preserved.
The bizarre structure is the work of Barry Robinson, who erected it without planning permission in a field opposite his home. Featuring 3 boxes 20ft up in the air and Union flags attached to two of the boxes, he describes it as a work of art celebrating Britishness.
Mr Robinson, an electrical contractor who has lived in the village with his wife Shirley for 33 years, started collecting old phone boxes four years ago and dotted them around his 150 ft sq patch of land. No one complained until the structure was erected.
He runs a refuge for old phone boxes, they come to him battered and smashed and he restores them and gives them a new home.
He gets them via contacts in councils around the country who sell them on to him, if he didn't buy them they would most probably end up in the dump.
His creation features one box from Blackpool, one from Kings Lynn, Norfolk, and one from Rugby, Warwickshire.
They are all K6 model boxes, which were designed to commemorate the Silver Jubilee of King George V in 1935 by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott and were the first to be installed nationwide.
Campaigners have fought to preserve traditional red phone boxes in the face of their widespread replacement by modern glass-sided booths made of stainless steel.
But seeing the traditional boxes displayed in Mr Robinson's structure is the last thing many in Hurley want.
Alan Charsley, 57, whose home overlooks it, said: 'It's an eyesore. I don't really expect to wake up in the morning and open the window to see three telephone boxes stuck up there in a field.
'There's nothing wrong with people wanting to preserve British heritage, there's a time and a place for everything. But if he wants to preserve British heritage why doesn't he donate the telephone boxes to a museum?'
Another local resident, who asked not to be identified, said: 'He says it is art, but the dictionary definition of art is not that. Three haphazardly positioned telephone boxes up a 20 foot girder is not art.'
Planners at North Warwickshire Borough Council will now have to decide if Mr Robinson is allowed to keep his tribute to British culture.
A spokesman said: 'There have been a number of people contacting us about it. We will now decide if there will be an enforcement act issued to remove it or whether he will be invited to submit a retrospective planning application.'
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I see nothing wrong with it, I've visited the site and only the houses in very close proximity can see it, and then only from upstairs windows. They can only see the boxes, the can't see the girders.
I do have concerns about a collection of British Heritage being kept at the site though, There's no parking. If He wants to create a museum He should be lookin at land to create one. I don't know of anywhere that has a substantial collection of British street furniture, which can also include railways.
He could always buy the old American adventure theme park and start a British Heritage theme park. !
Or if he wants it closer , do it on Baddesley pit site, you could even create a steam railway, Atherstone Marina to Birch Coppice/M42. We could house a national bus museum there, a canal boat museum at Atherstone top lock connected to the marina by a lock flight boat ride. Return journey via horse drawn stage coach.
