A deteriorating Dulwich Village telephone box will get a new lease of life when it is fitted with a life-saving defibrillator next week.
The Dulwich Society, a local volunteer group that improves local amenities, bought the listed telephone box and have decided to fit it with a defibrillator.
They recently created an interactive Google map displaying where defibrillators were held locally and noticed “a hole” in the centre of the village.
Having recently bought the disused phone box after protracted negotiations with BT, they decided to fit it with a Rotaid AID defibrillator cabinet.
It was purchased for the princely sum of £1, but the Dulwich Society will now have to take on maintenance costs.
James Thompson, Dulwich Society chairman, said: “We bought a top-of-the-range defibrillator which has really good functionality and anyone can use.”
The model they’ve chosen can detect if the patient requires defibrillation, and won’t administer a shock unless they really need it. It requires zero training and features a screen that flashes instructions to the user.
James said he hoped the device’s accessibility would ease people’s anxiety about using the device should the necessity arise.
Unexploded WW2 bombs discovered and detonated after being uncovered in Denmark Hill garden
The defibrillator will be fitted Thursday 26 May and the telephone box has already had a lick of paint ahead of its big day.
The Dulwich Village telephone box is a K6 model, designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott in 1935, the architect behind the Cambridge University Library and Liverpool Cathedral.
It was commissioned to commemorate the Silver Jubilee of the coronation of King George V.
James said it was fitting that the Dulwich Village telephone box’s rejuvenation should occur on another Jubilee year.
The Dulwich society had floated the idea of turning the telephone box into a community “micro library” but decided it could be put to better use.