BT plans to remove rarely-used phone boxes following review

BT has announced plans to remove 66 public phone boxes from the streets and rural roads of Angus.

There are nearly 4,800 payphones across Scotland and the firm is in the process of consulting on the removal of around 1,500 of them.

There are 134 payphones across the Angus Council area and no calls were made from 25 of these kiosks in the past 12 months.

A spokeswoman for BT said: “BT is committed to providing a public payphone service, but with usage declining by over 90 per cent in the last decade, we’ve continued to review and remove payphones which are no longer needed.

“Any removal of payphones is carried out in strict adherence to the Ofcom guidelines and, where appropriate, with the consent of local authorities.

“In all instances where there’s no other payphone within 400 metres, we’ll ask for consent from the local authority to remove the payphone.

“Where we receive objections from the local authority, we won’t remove the payphone.”

In the past five years alone, calls from BT payphones have fallen by more than 80%.

At their peak in 2002, there were 92,000 of them across the UK.

Now that number has almost halved to a total of 48,000 phones boxes, plus 9,000 phones in places like railway stations, airports and shopping centres.

In a bid to increase usage, the company has introduced new facilities in the boxes, including wifi and cash machines. gstrachan@thecourier.co.uk

Where we receive objections from the local authority, we won’t remove the payphone