TELEPHONE company British Telecom has said sorry after putting the wrong coloured cash machine in a central Oxford street. The company has replaced the gold and red cash machine and payphone in Cornmarket.

The problem was that the machine was a colour which hadn’t been approved by Oxford City Council. The issue emerged after the Oxford Mail’s features editor Jeremy Smith tweeted about what he called a “urine yellow monstrosity” in the street. He said: “It just goes to prove that Twitter and tweeting do have a community value. “And trust me, six months ago when I first joined Twitter, I would never have believed it. “Yet having complained on Twitter about this urine yellow monstrosity, I couldn’t believe the response my tweet attracted. “I had everyone from Oxford Civic Society, Oxford History Society, Anne-Marie Canning, Labour city councillor for Carfax ward, and even a man holding a freshly caught carp by the side of a river lending their support to me. “As a result, Oxford City Council, which responded openly and swiftly on Twitter, did admit there had been an oversight in the installation of this device. “So you know what? Right about now I love social media.” Originally the gold payphone and cash machine was installed on Wednesday, June 5. The city council then realised the kiosk was not in line with the planning permission it had given BT. When the city council gave it planning permission in 2010 it was agreed the kiosk would be grey so it would “fit in well with the surrounding street furniture”. After it emerged that this had not been followed talks were held between BT and the city council.

The negotiations ended with the telephone company replacing the kiosk on Monday, July 8. BT spokesman Chris Orum said: “The wrong colour kiosk was a mistake on our part, for which we apologise. “However, that has now been removed and the correct kiosk installed which we hope will prove to be popular with Oxford’s local people.” a He added that BT would not reveal how much it had cost the company to replace the kiosk.

But he pointed out that there were no other gold boxes in Oxford that some people might object to. A spokesman for Oxford City Council, said: “We have informally requested removal of the ATM.

“This was on the basis that it does not have planning permission from the Council and its visual appearance was considered unacceptable.”

Follow Jeremy Smith at @oxmailjsmith