Rainbow phonebox plan disconnected

A BID to paint Cheltenham’s famous telephone boxes in Promenade in rainbow colours has been dropped.

The Cheltenham Trust wants to give the telephone boxes a makeover for Cheltenham Pride Month this May by painting six boxes, one each in a different colour of the rainbow, and paint four boxes in white, for the temporary exhibition lasting a year.

It has now confirmed its application to gain planning permission from Cheltenham Borough Council, which was due to be decided on at last week’s planning committee, has been withdrawn due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The trust added it will re-submit the application when Government guidance would allow the project to be implemented safely.

A spokeswoman for The Cheltenham Trust said: “Due to the current Covid-19 restrictions, The Cheltenham Trust is not able currently to progress the plan for the phone boxes on the Promenade which was planned for May 2020.

“Consequently the Trust is following advice and is withdrawing the planning application until a time when Government guidance enables the scheme to be implemented safely.”

The four boxes painted white would have contained free-standing exhibition plinths internally.

The ‘Telephone’ sign on nine of the boxes would temporarily be replaced with one reading ‘Exhibition.’ One sign about the defibrillator would remain unchanged.

Museum bosses at the Wilson Art Gallery hoped this would encourage people to talk to them and share their LGBTQ+ oral history, photographs and objects, and to support them in recording and archiving an important part of social history.