Bid for Dorset phone boxes to be scrapped

This phone box in Colehill was used fewer than 30 times in the last year

Some traditional telephone boxes could be scrapped by BT.

The company has asked for planning consent to remove two phone boxes in east Dorset.

One outside Memorial Hall in Ringwood Road, Verwood, was used six times in the past year and the other, at Dales Drive, Colehill, was used 29 times.

Ofcom recently brought in new rules to protect rural phone boxes, but the company said mobile signal in both areas was "good".

In 2022, UK telecoms regulator Ofcom said it would stop BT, formerly British Telecom, from closing down phone boxes in areas with poor mobile signals if they were needed by local communities.

A phone box would be saved if it fitted one of the following criteria:

• It was located in an area not covered by all four mobile networks

• It was located in an area with many accidents or suicides

• More than 52 calls were made from it over the past 12 months

• It was otherwise providing a vital service, such as being used to make calls to Childline or Samaritans

BT told the Local Democracy Reporting Service that the traditional boxes in east Dorset were now "little used".

Public comments on the proposal to remove the boxes can be made to Dorset Council by mid-September.