Local authorities in Yorkshire have banded together to oppose BT’s plan to remove telephone boxes in rural areas, according to the Yorkshire Post

Councils across Yorkshire are calling on BT to keep at least 12 of the 43 public phones it hopes to remove in the coming months citing a ‘clear and overriding social need for their retention’. During a meeting, members said that BT had not given adequate consideration to isolated areas in deciding which phone boxes to remove.

A spokesperson for BT said the plans were a result of a more than 90 per cent decline in the use of payphones in the last decade.

BT aims to the scrap 20,000 boxes nationally between 2017 and 2022, and says the need to provide payphones for use in emergency situations is diminishing all the time, with at least 98 per cent of the UK having either 3G or 4G coverage.

Full article:

The Yorkshire Post - North Yorkshire council backlash over BT plans to scrap vital rural phone boxes