Phone boxes make a comeback – for drug dealers

RENDERED obsolete for most of us by mobiles, the traditional British phone box has retained one sad purpose – as a tool of the trade for drug dealing.

Police have warned about criminal elements taking over the boxes after the discovery of a ‘drug phone’ in Nottingham that is used to make a staggering 3,000 calls a year. BT confirmed the pay phone at the Bridgeway shopping centre is the most heavily used across Nottinghamshire.

The national average is one call per day, with the total falling 80 per cent in the last five years alone. Angry locals have demanded the notorious phone’s removal, which they say makes them ‘uncomfortable’, and Nottinghamshire Police said they are conducting ‘high visibility patrols’ in the area.

But BT – which could earn at least £1,800 a year from the calls, given its 60p minimum charge – suggested the high level of activity at the phone box in The Meadows area of the city could be driven by tourism.

Chris Brummitt, of the local Bridge Community Trust, disagreed, saying: ‘That phone has been known as the drug communication point for all the time that I have lived in The Meadows. It needs to go. I have never seen it used for normal purposes. We don’t get tourists in The Meadows.’

A BT spokesman said: ‘ We encourage anyone who spots any illegal activities to report this to the police.’