Box’s two calls in a year

A PHONE box set to be scrapped by BT has had just TWO calls made from it in the last 12 months.

The vandal-hit red box in Calder Road, Lower Hopton, is one of three in Mirfield due for the axe.

The traditional-style phone box has glass panels missing, the windows are grimy, there are cobwebs around the handset and the inside is strewn with rubbish and broken glass.

BT says the use of public phones has slumped by more than 90% in the last decade, meaning the landmark red kiosks are virtually redundant.

The company is to remove 100 phone boxes – including 55 across Kirklees – and they will disappear, unless the local community wants to ‘adopt’ them and give them a new lease of life.

Figures show the Calder Road phone box had just two calls made in the last year while another threatened phone box in Dunbottle Lane, Mirfield, was used just seven times. A third Mirfield phone box – in Crossley Lane – couldn’t escape the axe even with a comparatively huge 31 calls!

A Facebook group called The Red Box – Mirfield, was set up to investigate adopting one or more of the phone boxes. BT will hand them over for a nominal £1 if the community has a viable plan.

Some have become mini libraries, art galleries or community noticeboards while others house lifesaving defibrillators.

In nearby Upper Hopton the community took over the phone box in Jackroyd Lane and uses it as an exhibition space, putting on displays that change regularly.

Mirfield Tory councillor Martyn Bolt hopes the phone boxes can be saved and said: “Society has changed and everybody has a mobile phone.

“Mobiles aren’t infallible, however. Batteries run out or the signal goes down, so let’s hope those two calls weren’t 999 calls.

“But if the community wants to take them on, then Upper Hopton is very much the model to save a little piece of our heritage.”