Three phone boxes in Ross-on-Wye have been earmarked for removal by BT, they are the boxes in Gloucester Road, Greytree and The Avenue.
There are consultations underway regarding the closing of these payphones as well as 74 phone boxes in the Forest of Dean and 14 in the Caldicot, Chepstow and Monmouth areas.
The proposals were discussed at the Ross Town Council meeting on Monday, October 10th. Members were reminded that the most used of these was the one in The Avenue, where 83 calls were made in the previous year. The one at Gloucester Road had been used 15 times and the one in Greytree just once.
The Councillors recognised that with improved mobile phone reception the use of public phone boxes has reduced. However, they pointed out that there are still people using the phones, especially the one in The Avenue, and not everybody has a mobile phone.
They agreed to recommend acceptance of the closure of the phone boxes in Greytree and Gloucester Road but to object to the closure of one on The Avenue on the basis it is used more frequently.
The company says that, nationally, phone box use has declined by 90 per cent over the last decade and with technical developments such as 3G and 4G mobile networks, payphones are less important for contacting emergency services.
According to figures from BT, during the last year there were no calls made from nearly 40 of the boxes earmarked for closure and a further 41 across the whole area were used less than once a week on average.
Objections to the removal of boxes have to be sent to the planning department at Herefordshire Council by December 28th. Email: planning_enquiries@hereford
shire.gov.uk
BT says local communities can ‘adopt’ phone boxes for £1 to be put to other uses. Some of the ones taken over by local communities have been used as venues for book lending schemes or to house a defibrillator.