BT set to decide the fate of 72 phone boxes in Staffordshire

The phone boxes are located in the districts of East Staffordshire, South Staffordshire, Stafford and Staffordshire Moorlands.

Across the UK almost 1,700 phone boxes made no calls whatsoever between June 2019 and May 2020 – and more than 4,000 were used less than once a month.

While this may not come as a huge surprise, given the uptake in mobile phone usage, there are good reasons for retaining some phone boxes.

Communications regulator Ofcom says 96 per cent of UK adults now own a mobile phone, and that mobile signal has improved in recent years.

They add, however, that while the way people make calls is changing there is a need to preserve ‘vital’ phone boxes in some locations.

Ofcom is proposing new rules to protect a phone box from being unplugged if any of the following criteria applies: its location is not covered by the four major mobile networks; it is located near an accident or suicide hotspot; more than 52 calls have been made from it over the past 12 months or exceptional circumstances mean there is a need for it.

A BT spokesperson said: “We’re constantly reviewing the usage of our phone boxes to establish which boxes are needed and which aren’t.

“We haven’t decided when we will remove more payphones yet and want to better understand how the regulations will change.”

Ofcom estimates that around 5,000 phone boxes around the UK could be protected by the new guidelines.

The public is being asked to come forward to let BT and KCOM (which operates Hull’s unique white phone boxes) know about payphones that they think should be saved.

In total there are currently 21,000 call boxes across the country.

Ofcom says these sometimes provide a lifeline for making calls to friends and family, or helplines and emergency services.

Its figures reveal that 150,000 calls were made to emergency services from phone boxes in the 12 months up to May 2020 in addition to 25,000 calls to Childline and 20,000 to Samaritans.

Nevertheless, the boxes are being used a lot less often.

Call volumes from payphones have fallen from around 800 million minutes in 2002 to just 7 million in 2020.

If BT decides to decommission services, local authorities can choose to keep the iconic red kiosk by using the ‘Adopt a Kiosk’ scheme.

Local organisations can purchase the phone boxes for £1 and then use them for something else.

Since the scheme launched, over 6,000 kiosks have been converted for a range of uses, including community libraries and as a location for public defibrillators.

Report by Local Democracy Reporter Richard Price