BT scrapping half of UK’s telephone boxes

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BT are scrapping half of the UK’s remaining 40,000 telephone boxes.

The telecoms company said they were focusing on the ones in locations where people are likely to use them as many phone boxes had become a burden and were expensive to repair and maintain.

A BT spokesperson told the BBC: “BT is committed to providing a public payphone service, but with usage declining by over 90% in the last decade, we continue to review and remove payphones which are no longer used.”

The company are responsible for the cost of maintaining telephone boxes which is said to be about £6m annually.

In their peak in the 90s there were 92,000 boxes before the popularity of mobile phones soared. The boxes still handle 33,000 calls a day but a third of them are never used to make a call.

It is estimated that 93 per cent of all people in the UK now own a mobile phone, although phone boxes are still dues by the elderly, children and in emergencies when smart phones are working.

Only 7,000 of the traditional boxes that were designed in 1935 to commemorate the silver jubilee of King George V can be found across the UK.

The 20,000 telephone boxes will be scrapped over the next five years the company said.