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By PHYLLIS STEPHENCITY CENTRE councillor, Finlay
McFarlane asked at the last full
council meeting for some answers on
the damaged and disused phone
boxes which are littering our streets.
And he got a positive reply. The phone
boxes on Hanover Street are eventually
to be removed.
Cllr McFarlane said: “It is good news to
hear that finally the broken phone boxes
will be removed from Hanover Street, but
I was disappointed to learn that was the
sum total of the council leader’s
negotiations with BT.
“Whilst ultimately BT are a private
company, the council leader has
confirmed on previous occasions that the
council can make requests for the
removal of phone boxes if required. It is
very much my opinion, and I suspect
shared with the majority of residents,
that we can and should be requesting
nothing short of all ancillary phone boxes
be removed as soon as possible.
“Since Ofcom legislation around public
phone provision has been relaxed there
are no longer any excuses to hide behind.
We all know that pavement is at a
premium in Edinburgh and therefore if
there is more than one phone box in an
area within 400 metres walking distance
from the next they should go.”DANGER REMOVED
The Council Leader, Cammy Day said in a
written reply that a final meeting with BT
is arranged for later in the month.
Cllr Day said: “Council officers continue
to discuss phone boxes in the city with BT.
As noted in my response to a similar
question in October 2022, the Council has
limited powers to instruct BT to
undertake any work or removals.
“Where phone boxes that are in a
dilapidated condition or are considered
dangerous are identified or reported to
the Council, these are reported to BT
Defective Apparatus.
“Council officers are meeting with BT to
discuss the ongoing repair and/or
removal of redundant phone boxes
around the city. These discussions will
also cover the process for removal of
phone boxes and BT’s programme of
works for this. Where a phone box is
deemed to be a hazard or danger to the
public, the Council will make a request for
removal. Council officers have requested
that the phone box on Hanover Street
that has been damaged be removed and
BT are arranging this now.”Action on old
phone boxes
Toy fan takes cracking
photos of his son’s
model motors
Ross Burns
rubber with
HotWheels
By PHYLLIS STEPHEN
ROSS BURNS has a passion for fast cars - but
the ones he loves best are the small 1:64 cars
known as HotWheels.
He takes one out with him every day, and has
done for almost three years now.
He is Head of Comms at Edinburgh Napier
during the day, but more importantly dad to a
6-year-old son who is just mad about
HotWheels cars. He challenged himself to take
a photo featuring one of the cars each day, and
has so far created almost 900 posts on
Instagram.
It all started in Summer 2020. Ross
explained: "My son has a passion for Hot
Wheels though I used to like Matchbox
cars when I was younger - which are still about
- but we chose Hot Wheels as they are a bit
more ubiquitous.
"When you have a child you find yourself out
and about. One day we were in Saughton Park
and my son had taken some cars just to play
with as usual. I took some photos of the car and
truck he had with him. I started thinking that
he had a lot of these cars and it would be a good
way of forcing myself to go out for a walk every
day. At the time there wasn't much else to do, so
it started that way, and here we are all these
hundreds of posts later.
"It quickly became something that I had to
do every day - I have posted every day since late
August 2020. The cars are quite cheap at £1.
each, and we would rather Daniel had
something like that rather than sweets. There
are now around 500 in his collection, so there's
a wealth of material there. It is sort of an equal
excitement for me when he gets a new one, but
I do have to ask him not to bash it up before
I've taken a photo of it."
Some cars have featured more than once with
favourites photographed several times over.
"At the beginning I used only real looking
cars and not the fantasy type that Hot Wheels
also make. I try to make the car look at home in
its environment so that it looks as though it
could actually be there. The ones that do
achieve that tend to do better. So if I post a
Land Rover for example (people like the off
road vehicles - we call them big wheels guys)
people always go for that as they look at home
in their surroundings - on the beach, in the
forest or wherever, and they look real."
“It is now very much a part of Daniel's
routine now so this is for him as well as for
myself. First thing in the morning he asks to see
any new posts - I tend to post in the evening
once he has gone to bed. Then he goes to school
and draws that day's post from memory. So if I
have hundreds of posts he has several hundredsof drawings.. They are fascinating and his
drawing has much improved. The detail he gets
of the car and the background is quite amazing.
He also has an encyclopaedic memory of which
cars have been used in previous posts. He got a
camera Christmas before last and now he is
using it to take photos of Hot Wheels. No idea
where he got that idea from - but it has been the
best present he’s ever had."
Now Ross cannot really stop taking his
photos which are mainly based all over
Edinburgh as this is about more than just him.Take a look at the photos Ross has taken on his
Instagram page scot.wheelsA selection of the
cool cars cruising
around EdinburghAllan Shedlock