WINCHESTER City Council is to join the fight to save village telephone boxes threatened with closure.

The council has announced it will object to the removal of 41 out of 43 of the public payphones.

The action comes after the council was criticised for failing to make parish councils and the public aware it had the power to veto the planned closure of phone boxes.

BT wants to scrap the kiosks, many of them the traditional red ones, because of a decline in use.

Those with the iconic red dome designed by Giles Gilbert Scott in 1924 are listed buildings and can't be removed.

But in 43 boxes, mainly in remote rural areas, there are now BT notices warning users of removal after a 42-day consultation period starting last month.

The hit list includes the only kiosks in villages such as Sutton Scotney, South Wonston and Stoke Charity.

Other threatened boxes are in Durley, Compton, Twyford, Kilmeston, Bramdean, Cheriton, Hursley, Sparsholt, Owslebury, Itchen Abbas, Martyr Worthy and Kings Worthy.

Two in Alresford and five inWinchester are also for the chop.

Following last week's story in the Hampshire Chronicle, the city council received 169 comments from parish councils, city councillors and the public.

The vast majority were opposed.

BT says less than one call a week is made from more than half the kiosks earmarked for closure across the UK, and less than one a month from a third.

But objectors say the payphones can be a lifesaver in an emergency, such as road traffic accidents.

Cllr George Beckett, leader of the city council, said: "We have considered usage levels, the comments of the residents and parish councils, and the importance of retaining local facilities, particularly in rural areas.

"While we appreciate these phone boxes may be uneconomic for BT, they are important local amenities.

"The day may come when everyone has a mobile phone, but we are not there yet and the phone boxes must stay."

The council is not objecting to the removal of phone boxes at Woodlands, Bramdean and Church Lane in Durley, because it says it is difficult to justify keeping them open.

Charles Bazlinton, parish clerk to Wonston, Micheldever and Tichborne, lobbied regulator the Office of Communications (Ofcom) earlier this week to secure a stay of execution.

This is because of confusion over the power of the local authority to step in and halt the removal of boxes.

In June, the council wrote to all parish councils, saying it was only co-ordinating responses to pass on to BT, and was not involved in the decision-making.

But Mr Bazlinton subsequently discovered the local authority had a power of veto if it chose to exercise it.

Ofcom has set the rules about what has to happen before a phone box can be removed.

On the city council's website there is an Ofcom link which sets out the process after notices of closure are posted in boxes.

It says: "If the local organisation then writes to BT within 90 days to object, setting out their reasons, BT cannot remove the call box.

This is known as the local veto."

Possible reasons for objecting include if the box is near an accident blackspot, or in an area of social housing.

A BT spokesman said: "In all instances where there is not another payphone within 400 metres we need the local authority's consent to remove the kiosk, and if there is a clear social need for those phones they won't be removed."

The spokeswoman said BT was only likely to appeal if a council issued a blanket objection, without giving its reasons.

BT advised people to send comments to the city council's planning department within 42 days of the notices of closure being posted on boxes.

This is to give the council time to collate the responses, decide whether to object, and consult the public again before responding to BT by September 4.

But the council says it will consider all comments sent to its planning department up to August 29.

11:09am Thursday 24th July 2008

Print   Email this   Comment