Time Running Out For Telephone Box Consultation 2019

2nd October 2019

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The Highland council has been running a consultation about the removal of 110 telephone boxes in Highland. The last list showed there had been no objections for the removal of Caithness telephone boxes in Castletown, Halkirk and Latheron.

The consultation closes - no later than 23:59 on 24/10/2019.

For more details on the council consultation see HERE

Adopting a phone kiosk:
Communities with a traditional, red heritage phone box also have opportunity to adopt the kiosk (with the phone-line removed), for £1.

Following this second phase of consultation, the Council's final decision notice will be submitted to BT and published in early November 2019. Ofcom states that BT must not bring a proposed removal into effect if it has received written objection to the proposal from the Council by the end of the consultation period. This is known as the local veto.

BT is proposing to remove hundreds of phone boxes across Scotland in a fresh round of cuts.

It has earmarked 650 around the country - about 20% of the national total - to be taken out of service.

A previous programme saw about 1,500 closed - with hundreds of them "adopted" by their local community for a variety of uses.

If this round goes ahead it would leave about 2,600 phone boxes - a reduction of more than 60% since 2003.

The areas most affected by the latest removals would be the Highlands (110) and Scottish Borders (95).

Photo
Telephone box at Halkirk some years ago
Photographer - Bill Fernie

Earlier Phone Box Stories
30 April 2008
BT Payphone Consultation - 194 Payphones In Highland To Go

[url=http://www.caithness.org/telephones/disappearingkiosks.htm]Earlier Years]