A TOTAL of 23 traditional red phone boxes in West Somerset – including nine on Exmoor – under threat of removal for the past three years, could be saved for their communities under new proposals from communications regulator Ofcom.

Ofcom is proposing clearer and stronger rules which could prevent further sweeping reductions in the number of public payphones – 6,000 have already been sold to communities by BT to be used for anything from housing books to defibrillators.

As part of the move to digital phone lines, BT is assessing which call boxes are no longer needed and can be decommissioned. But Ofcom says under the current protocols some still needed by local communities remain at risk of being withdrawn. 

It is proposing a new set of safeguards which would stop BT removing a call box if its location is not covered by all four mobile networks or if it is located at an accident or suicide blackspot.

A phone box would also qualify for protection if still used on average more than once a week or if other exceptional circumstances exist.

This week, residents of Blue Anchor were hoping that the new proposals would save their 80-year-old seafront phone box which had been under threat of removal for two years.

One resident said: “It has been invaluable over the years when there have been emergencies in the sea or on the beach, particularly when people or animals get stuck on the mud-banks. Not everyone has a mobile phone or can get a signal.”

Local MP Ian Liddell-Grainger said he was delighted with Ofcom’s new criteria: “I have a classic case in my constituency: Luccombe, an Exmoor village where there is no mobile coverage yet, where the village has had to fight tooth and nail to retain its red phone box,” he said.

“In deciding which boxes can be removed without causing too much inconvenience BT appears to be making some strange assumptions.

“It seems to use the telecoms industry’s own statistics for levels of mobile coverage as a yardstick even though in the past these have been highly optimistic and considerably at odds with reality.

“It probably costs far more to maintain these boxes and the lines to them than can ever be economically justified, but on the other hand BT is making pretty healthy profits on its other activities and should be able to absorb them without too much pain.

“And we are not just talking about money here - we are talking about a public service and critical situations such as accidents, fires and other emergencies where an old fashioned red phone box can still make all the difference between life and death.

“I am very pleased Ofcom has listened to what I and other rural MPs have been saying and has recognised the merits of maintaining at least a skeleton network of public payphones.”