ALMOST one in five public payphones are to be scrapped in Scotland after the network fell foul of the mobile phone boom.
Where they were once a feature of the high street, usage of the working street phones has fallen sharply and many have now been deemed obsolete as more and more people buy smartphones.
Operator BT said the number of calls made from kiosks has fallen 90 per cent over the past decade and that no calls have been made from about 700 in the past year.
A total of 947 kiosks will now be scrapped, leaving 3,840 working phone boxes north of the Border, down from almost 7,000 in 2003.
BT initially targeted about 1,500 payphones, almost a third of its estate, for removal as part of a rationalisation drive, but after consulting local councils, the company has agreed to retain 428 of those that were under review.
Many of the phones being removed are in Aberdeenshire (85), Dumfries and Galloway (75) and Fife (97). Glasgow will lose 29.
Just four of the 104 under consideration in the Borders will be removed and 98 have been retained in the Highlands.
In its response to BT’s consultation, Highland Council warned the scrapping of some boxes could have an impact on road safety. They said the move would leave long stretches of the road network without payphone provisions.
Callers should be able to contact the emergency services on their mobile phones, no matter how poor the reception or how little credit callers have, according to BT.
But Highland Council pointed out that, without payphones, emergency operators would not be able to call people back in areas with zero reception.
During its consultation period, BT pledged it would retain any payphone where there were objections to it being removed.
The closure of so many phone boxes is another example of the changing face of the high street, which has also been seen the disappearance of former stalwarts such as bank branches and post offices, Last month it was revealed a bank branch had closed every day on average this year, with Bank of Scotland, TSB, Clydesdale and Royal Bank of Scotland all shutting locations.
At the start of the year it was announced five Crown Post Offices in Scotland are to close as part of a UK-wide programme.
A BT spokesman said it followed Ofcom’s consultation on payphone removal, unless there was another payphone within 400 metres, when the process was not required. He added: “We are committed to provi- ding a public payphone service but demand just isn’t there any more.
“With usage declining, we have continued to review and, where necessary, rationalise our payphone estate to continue to meet remaining customer demand and manage our costs.”
“As an alternative to removal, we continue to actively promote the Adopt a Kiosk scheme to all councils whilst being committed to maintaining the payphones that remain.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel