Bid to Replace Telephone Kiosks in Central Chiswick
Two would to be removed and two would carry digital advertising
The phone boxes outside the Empire House development would be replaced. Picture: ChiswickW4.com
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November 24, 2024
Applications have been submitted that would see the removal of two phone boxes in Chiswick and the replacement of two others with new kiosks that would carry digital advertising.
NWP Street Limited (NWP) says it wants to upgrade two of the existing boxes on the High Road which were installed in the nineties. Its application is conditional on permission being granted for two other boxes it owns being removed.
The company says that, being almost three decades old, the boxes are outmoded in telephony and accessibility terms that it needs to rationalise its estate given the decline in usage of its kiosks.
The new kiosks would carry digital advertising and contain a defibrillator. They would aim to resemble the look of a traditional phone box to make their purpose more identifiable. The application criticises modern kiosks introduced by BT and JC Decaux as not being instantly recognisable as telephone boxes. They would be wider but less deep than the existing boxes and be wheelchair accessible.
A visualisation of the new phone box design from the applicant
The first application (P/2024/3786) relates to the two boxes near the Empire House development at 414 Chiswick High Road. An application for a new kiosk at this site in 2016 was rejected due to the display advertising incorporated being considered unacceptable at this location but NWP argues that since then the ad display board closer to the Old Packhorse has been given permission. It says that this means that a phone kiosk with illuminated advertising “is no longer incongruous within the Conservation Area”.
As part of this application, it wants to completely remove the two boxes outside Planet Organic at 199 Chiswick High Road.
The two boxes near the car park in central Chiswick would go. Picture: Google Streetview
The second application (P/2024/3785) is for the replacement of the single box at 116 Chiswick High Road near the Sainsbury’s Local store. Associated with this application is the removal of the box at 24 Turnham Green Terrace near Starbucks.
This box near Sainsbury's Local on the High Road would be replaced. Picture: Google Streetview
The new kiosks would be roughly the same height as the enclosed kiosks and include a 1.6metre high and 0.93 metre wide display board which the applicant says Hounslow Council will be allowed to use for public service alerts and public health messaging at no cost to the Council, as well as for emergency incident messaging. The integrated display would portray static advertising images changing every 10 seconds and be turned off between midnight and 5am.
This box on Turnham Green Terrace would go. Picture: Google Streetview
The applicant has partnered with ‘Trees for Cities’, the Lambeth-based charitable organisation working and says it will plant a tree at a location to be agreed with the council for every kiosk granted permission.
The applications are part of a broader programme of rationalisation across the borough which would see the number of phone boxes reduced by 70% to just nine.
For more details of the applications and to make comments, use the references give above to search on the planning section of the Hounslow Council web site.
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