Putney High Street’s dilapidated phonebox which has literally sat in the way of traffic improvements for over a year, will finally be removed this Thursday.
Putney MP Fleur Anderson says she was contacted personally by BT to tell her the removal date: a suitably bizarre detail in what has become a lengthy battle to get rid of the rusted-out shell so the pavement can be inset for buses, and – hopefully – allow for far greater traffic flow.
BT itself flagged the box for removal itself nearly two years ago. The phone doesn’t even work. And yet it has stubbornly held its place outside TKMaxx despite requests, campaigns and petitions, as BT’s bureaucratic wheels have ground slowly into action.
Just last month, over 130 Putney.news readers emailed BT’s previously obscure phone-removal service in an effort to move things along. Four weeks later, we have a date. Given that the council first asked for its removal in July 2025, that’s rocket pace for British Telecom. There’s another phonebox on Biggs Row by the Half Moon that should have been removed in March 2021!
No one is counting their chickens though: Anderson was careful not to promise the eyesore would be gone by Friday, and we have asked for formal proof from that D-Day is this week. The company has yet to respond.
The box sits directly in the footprint of a planning permitted layby at Bus Stop M that would let buses on seven routes, the 14, 39, 74, 85, 93, 424 and 430, pull in off Putney High Street instead of stopping in lane and holding up the traffic behind them.
BT has promised this before
In December 2025, Fleur Anderson announced what she called a “Phone Box Breakthrough”: BT promised to remove one derelict box and relocate the other. One went. The Bus Stop M box stayed. Council engineer Henry Cheung told the Transport Overview and Scrutiny Committee in February that BT had labelled the boxes for removal but made “no progress”.
BT’s own notice, reading simply “time to remove”, has stood inside the box since 13 November 2024. The handset connects to nothing. The display reads “NO CASH CALLS”.
Wandsworth’s transport chief at the time, Cllr Jenny Yates, wrote urgently to Transport for London in July 2025 asking, among other fixes, for a bus pull-in outside TK Maxx, five months before Anderson’s ‘breakthrough’. The council realigned the kerb opposite the shop last March. TfL is still assessing the feasibility of the bay itself. None of it can be built while the box stands.
Then came our email campaign to get it removed in May. BT’s Jonathan Liggins replied within a day, blaming the delay on approval for a replacement Street Hub advertising unit, since granted. He still gave no date and follow-up emails went unanswered.
If the box is still there after Thursday, readers can email BT Payphones, complain to Ofcom about BT’s failure to maintain a working call box, or contact Anderson’s office and Thamesfield’s ward councillors directly. Putney’s long-running junction problems will not clear until buses can pull off the High Street, and that now depends on one dead phone finally going.
I am sincerely greatful to Putney.new reporter to make us aware of what
is going on in our borough, and of all actions taken to make it safer and more pleasant that it is, and I took ́note to email BT payphones complain to Ofcom about BT’s failure to mainrain a working phone box
There is a sign in the vicinity saying that ‘improvement works’ will start next Monday. Also I note that the posts marking the cycle lane in Putney Bridge Road have gone and the bus lane regulations there have changed. Can you tell us what is going to happen?
The phone box has been removed this morning.