Adopt A Red Phone Box For £1!

Villages across the Harborough District are being given the chance to adopt their red phones boxes for £1

Eleven of the traditional phone boxes are included in BT’s ‘Adopt A Kiosk’ scheme and the company  wants to hear from parish councils or community charities interested in taking them on if the phone is removed.

In other areas they have been used to house defibrillators, mini libraries and noticeboards.

Calls made from the phones have dramatically fallen in the past ten years – BT says it will consider all requests, although may decide the phone is still needed if there is an operational or community need for it.

 

The phone boxes that will be considered for adoption are:

LAUGHTON

LOWESBY ROAD, LOWESBY

ALBERT STREET, KIBWORTH HARCOURT

MAIN STREET, FROLESWORTH

NORTH STREET, SWINFORD

MAIN STREET, SHAWELL

MAIN STREET, GLOOSTON

NR WAR MEMORIAL, 1 HIGH STREET, HALLATON

NR PADDOCK LA, 1 DRAYTON ROAD, NEVILL HOLT

MAIN STREET, MEDBOURNE

NR WELHAM CHURCH, MAIN STREET, WELHAM

A BT spokesperson said: “Calls made from our public telephones have fallen by around 90 per cent in the past decade, and we take a number of factors into account before deciding whether to remove one. We also run our popular Adopt a Kiosk scheme, which gives communities the opportunity to take on their local red phone box for just £1 to turn it into something inspirational for their local area.

“There are currently 11 red phone boxes in the Harborough area and we will consider adoption requests for all of them. However, we also reserve the right to decline requests where there remains an operational or community need for the telephone service. For further details about our Adopt a Kiosk scheme visit www.bt.com/adopt”

Meanwhile, BT is set to remove on of the two payphones Market Harborough town centre because the kiosk in The Square is hardly used.