John Davies told the Daily Mirror that residents on Arne Road in Coventry were deliberately misled when a landowner told them that a concrete base being laid on the street was intended for a salt box to store grit for icy roads, only for a bright green parcel locker to be erected instead on April 10. The locker, according to the Daily Mirror, was installed without any planning permission and has not been used a single time since its appearance, leaving residents deeply frustrated and feeling deceived. The locker, which is owned by delivery specialist Yeep!
4 meters) tall and is powered by a combination of batteries and solar panels mounted on top. Its vivid green color and bulky frame have been labelled an eyesore by locals, with John Davies telling the newspaper that it looks completely out of place in the residential setting. Residents have also questioned the choice of location, noting that the locker sits about half a mile from the nearest shop, whereas other similar lockboxes in the Coventry area have been positioned much closer to amenities, including a supermarket and a bingo hall.
Everybody is up in arms about it, all the residents. It's on the lawn that's tended by the residents themselves. All the gardens are kept prim and proper around here and we take pride in the area. There were small parcels of land when the estate was built and a company had the rights to them. They put them up for sale and people bought them up. A chap in Kenilworth bought this land. A couple of months ago he was around scratching in the soil. When asked what he was doing he said the council asked him to do it as they were putting a salt box there. We all thought that was a tremendous idea, we always need salt boxes. They put a concrete base in but then this great big box appeared. He's completely pulled the wool over our eyes so he could drop it in there without us knowing or getting in his way. Nobody can understand it all, it's not next to a supermarket. It's not like people can easily come and go to pick up and drop off parcels. It's in front of someone's home, blocking their front window and getting in the way. It's in a residential area, there's been no planning permission for it. It was chucked up around two-weeks-ago, but we don't know who intends to use it. We've not seen any use of it in that time either. There's a bingo hall around half a mile away with a supermarket and they have plenty of lockboxes there. So why do we need this one here, with nothing around it? The council came out the next day and said they'd do the best to get it moved.
The peculiar placement directly in front of people's homes has only added to the sense that it was put there with little consideration for the community. Suzanna Davies, another resident living on Arne Road, told the Daily Mirror that the locker is situated right in front of her home, partially obscuring her front window and reducing the natural light that enters her house. She expressed additional worries about safety, pointing out that delivery vehicles stopping at the locker could create hazards for pedestrians and other motorists on the narrow road, and might also interfere with the work of community mowers who maintain the grass verges.
The city council visited the site the day after the locker was installed, and according to John Davies, officials acknowledged the problem and promised they would do their best to have it relocated. However, they did not provide a specific timeline for action, and it remains unresolved whether the landowner even had the legal right to permit the installation. For now, residents are left waiting, with the unused green locker continuing to be a source of daily annoyance.
It's outrageous, we were on holiday and when we got back it was there, plonked in the middle. We all care for where we live. There's pretty flowers and we all help with the mowing, which will make it a bit hard to do. It's all resident parking only, so there's more risk of traffic and a danger to kids. Who wants to live near that?