SCARBOROUGH Council has begun the next stage of its public consultation regarding British Telecom's plans to pull the plug on 21 rural telephone boxes in the borough.
The move has caused concern among parish councils and Scarborough MP Robert Goodwill, who has raised fears that areas without a mobile phone signal could be left without a public phone box in the event of an emergency.
The council has announced it is provisionally objecting to 17 of the proposed removals and will now carry out a further consultation period before it makes its final recommendations.
A council spokesman said the authority had received strong objections to the removal of the payphone in High Street, Burniston, adding: "It is considered locally that the phone box is little used now because it has been converted into a card-only facility and these are not locally available.
"The local community would prefer it to be converted back to a coin and card facility, so enabling more people to use the facility."
It is also objecting to the removal of a phonebox in Southfield, Reighton Gap, because of its isolated location where mobile phone signals cannot be relied upon, and a payphone in Manor View Road, Lebberston, due to a lack of alternative facilities.
The council has received no objections to the removal of phone boxes in West Bank, Osgodby Lane and Suffield.
BT can remove a payphone without consultation if another is situated within 400 metres.
The company claims phone usage has halved in the past two years with the result that 60 per cent of the public payphones base is now unprofitable.
It also says calls are still declining at 20 per cent year on year, with 10 per cent of phones making less than one call a year.
Any further comments or objections to the plans should be sent to Jo Ireland, Community Partnerships manager, Scarborough Borough Council, Regeneration and Planning Services, St Nicholas Street, Scarborough, YO11 2HG or emailed to
jo.ireland@scarborough.gov.ukTo view the draft schedule of phoneboxes under threat click here to download the PDF report.To view the the Scarborough Council response to the draft decision click here to download as a PDF report.What do you think? You can leave your comments below.The full article contains 392 words and appears in n/a newspaper.
