§ Mr. J. Edwardsasked the Postmaster- General what is the size of the waiting list for telephones in each telephone area in Great Britain and Northern Ireland; what proportion this bears to the total number of subscribers in each area; and when he expects to reach the position, in the respective areas, when requests for the connection of a telephone can be put in hand immediately such requests are received.
§ Mr. MarplesFollowing is a statement of the number of applications held up pending the provision of additional cables or telephone exchange equipment. Our capital resources are limited, and I cannot say when sufficient plant will be provided to enable provision of telephone service to be put in hand immediately any request is received. In addition to the figures given in the Table there are some 80,000 applications in course of being met.
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Telephone Area Waiting List (30th September, 1958) Waiting list as a percentage of total number of subscribers Aberdeen 343 0.6 Bedford 1,372 3.2 Belfast 1,265 1.8 Birmingham 4,913 3.9 Blackburn 929 1.6 Bournemouth 60 0.1 Bradford 768 1.0 Bcenteron 834 0.8 Bristol 376 0.4 Cambridge 507 1.0 Canterbury 220 0.4 Cardiff 1,822 2.9 Chester 1,088 2.3 Colchester 432 1.0 Coventry 2,895 5.3 Dundee 72 0.2 Edinburgh 174 0.2 Exeter 8 — Glasgow 3,168 2.1 Gloucester 384 0.9 Guildford 1,144 2.2 Lancaster 484 1.2 Leeds 724 0.9 Leicester 834 1.2 Lincoln 810 1.7 Liverpool 705 0.4 London/Centre Nil Nil London/City Nil Nil London/East 4,697 3.2 London/North 2,678 1.5 London/North West 1,283 0.7 London/South East 3,065 1.5 London/South West 5,026 2.1 London/West 6,630 3.6 Manchester 4,771 2.6 Middlesbrough 818 1.7 Newcastle-on-Tyne 1,223 1.3 Norwich 120 0.3 Nottingham 1,448 1.6 Oxford 2,375 4.7 Peterborough 46 0.1 Plymouth 123 0.2 Portsmouth 1,024 2.0 Preston 1,226 1.9 Reading 1,802 3.0 Scotland West 1,763 2.1 Sheffield 1,902 2.8 Shrewsbury 333 0.8 Southampton 189 0.4 Southend-on-Sea 1,296 2.7 Stoke-on-Trent 91 0.2 Swansea 926 2.5 Taunton 2 — Tunbridge Wells 521 0.9 West Midland 2,895 4.2 York 284 0.6