Canterbury: The odd thing about these boxes is that they were both padlocked.
This image from Have I Got News For You.
Tag Archives: rural
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Posted in Geography
Tagged heritage and history, rural, UK, urban
Portugal
On a recent trip to the north of Portugal I was surprised to see so many UK styled boxes in use.
Australian contributions
Thanks to Kevin for allowing me to post this night time shot of a phonebox. I think this is Lakeland, Queensland.
More of the same
Yes more phone boxes on tv. This first one is America’s Game…The Wheel of Fortune. We’ve just started watching this and there was no explanation of the set. I’m not sure if it’s a regular thing but on this episode they appear to being trying to set an English scene. There is naturally a phone box but what’s this about the word ‘Metro’ being imposed on an Underground logo? A little reserach on the topic wouldn’t go amiss 🙂
The Lake District, Margate and London
A couple of months ago my husband, dog and I took a short trip to the Lakes District. Here are a couple of shots from that trip:
Here are a couple from Margate and London:
By the Royal Academy, London
Cumbria boxes
We took a few days away up to the Lakes District and came across these…
Thousands of UK phone boxes to be protected from closure
BT to be banned from scrapping payphones in areas with poor mobile coverage or high accident rates
Cross-post from The Guardian
About 5,000 public phone boxes around the UK will be protected from closure in areas of high accident rates or poor mobile signals, under plans drawn up by Ofcom, the regulator.
The communications watchdog said it would ban BT from scrapping payphones in areas where they were still needed, namely locations with poor mobile coverage, high accident or suicide rates, or higher-than-average use. There are about 21,000 call boxes across the country.
For several years, BT has been decommissioning payphones that are deemed to be no longer needed. Phone box use has plummeted as 96% of UK adults own a mobile phone. However, local organisations can buy a red phone box for ÂŁ1 and use it for something else. More than 6,000 have been converted to other uses, such as community libraries, or to house public defibrillators.
Ofcom said it had received a call on Tuesday from a mountain rescue team in the Lake District that was keen for its local phone box, earmarked for closure by BT, to be saved.
Selina Chadha, the Ofcom director of connectivity, said: “Some of the call boxes we plan to protect are used to make relatively low numbers of calls. But if one of those calls is from a distressed child, an accident victim or someone contemplating suicide, that public phone line can be a lifeline at a time of great need.
“We also want to make sure that people without mobile coverage, often in rural areas, can still make calls. At the same time, we’re planning to support the rollout of new phone boxes with free wifi and charging.”
About 5m calls were made from phone boxes in the year to May 2020, including almost 150,000 to emergency services, while 25,000 were made to ChildLine and 20,000 to Samaritans. However, call volumes from payphones have fallen from about 800m minutes in 2002 to 7m in 2020.
Under the plans, BT and Kcom, which operates Hull’s unique cream phone boxes, must install batteries in some payphones so they can be used during a power cut.
A BT spokesperson said: “BT takes its regulatory obligations seriously in providing a public phone box service. Any phone box removals are carried out in strict adherence to Ofcom guidelines and, where appropriate, with the consent of local authorities.
“We also know many communities love their red kiosks and, to date, more than 6,500 have been adopted across the UK via our continuing Adopt a Kiosk scheme – turning them into lifesaving defibrillator units, mini libraries, and many other new uses. BT looks forward to working constructively with Ofcom throughout the consultation process to ensure the universal service obligation meets the needs of the public today.”https://www.theguardian.com/email/form/plaintone/business-todaySign up to the daily Business Today email or follow Guardian Business on Twitter at @BusinessDesk
Under Ofcom’s stronger rules, a phone box will be protected from removal if one of four criteria apply: its location is not covered by all four main mobile networks; it is located at 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 a public call box.
Ofcom said BT and Kcom could propose to remove phone boxes that did not fall within these criteria, but would need to formally consult local communities before any action was taken.
Julia KolleweTue 9 Nov 2021
Another makeover
Not sure how we missed this Christmas episode…
Adopt a Box
Not a new idea but nice to hear about how communities are keeping an icon relevant…
BT is putting 4,000 phone boxes up for adoption. Many have already been turned into libraries, defibrillator stations, even tiny art galleries.
Name: Red telephone boxes.
Age: Sir Giles Gilbert Scott’s original K2 design dates from 1924, but his smaller K6, from 1936, is the the more widespread.
Appearance: Iconic.
Purpose: Depends.
You mean it depends on the nature of the telephone call you wish to place? Of course not – nobody uses phone boxes to make calls any more.
Why not? Because everybody has a mobile now. Only about 7,000 traditional red phone boxes across the UK even work, but more than half lose money and calls continue to decline by 20% a year.
What other purpose can an obsolete phone box serve? A lot of them get turned into libraries.
Aren’t they a bit small for that? They’re very small libraries – basically community hubs where books can be donated and exchanged.
I suppose it’s better than no library at all. Precisely. When mobile library funding was cut for Westbury-sub-Mendip, Somerset, the parish council bought the local phone box and slung up some shelves.
Bought it from where? From BT. Since 2008, its Adopt a Kiosk scheme has allowed communities to purchase its redundant phone boxes for ÂŁ1.
Is the scheme popular? Yes. So far 6,600 phone boxes have been adopted, and BT just announced another 4,000 are to be made available.
That’s a lot of tiny libraries. They’re not all full of books. Some of the kiosks were turned into information centres or mini-museums. In Cheltenham, nine disused boxes have been transformed into single-occupancy art galleries.
What a lovely idea. If there’s a downside to cutting vital community services to the point where they can fit inside phone boxes, I can’t see it. Well, some of the library boxes have had to be temporarily shut because of Covid.
I suppose there may be a risk there. And someone has been leaving erotic fiction in the phone box in Hurstbourne Tarrant, Hampshire.
Gatehouse
I came across this photo when going through some archaeological archives. It’s described as a Faversham gatehouse. It’s obviously on an industrial site and that appears to be ME13 7DL as the electrical supplier CEF is based there. Next time we go to Faversham, we’ll take a little detour.
