Elderly villagers battling to save their iconic red K6 telephone box insist they won’t be fobbed off with a mini-library or a defibrillator – they want a working phone.
BT has told them it wants to cut the line to the booth in the Norfolk hamlet of Sharrington, after just nine calls were made from it last year.
The telecoms giant has offered to sell the phone box to them for just £1 as part of a scheme which has seen hundreds of obsolete kiosks converted into everything from art galleries to nightclubs.
But campaigners say many elderly residents of the north Norfolk village do not have mobile phones in an area that is blighted by erratic signal strength.
‘It’s a David and Goliath situation,’ said 89-year-old resident Derek Harris, who is leading the resistance.
‘It is a war between the village and BT and we are trying to enlist as much help as we can.
‘We want this phone box to remain functioning.’
The number of payphones in the UK has fallen from more than 100,000 in the 1990s to fewer than 20,000 today, and just 3,000 of them are Sir George Gilbert Scott’s classic red K6 design.
The rise of mobile phones has slashed demand for public phones and the telecoms regulator Ofcom allows BT to cut off a unit if it is used for fewer than 52 calls a year.
BT says the Sharrington box is used for fewer than one call a month on average and not a single coin has been inserted so far this year.
But Mr Harris, who has lived in the village for 50 years, says many locals rely on it in emergencies and it provides a crucial lifeline for ramblers and tourists who may find themselves in a phone signal blackspot.
‘We are an elderly population who are not great with technology,’ he explained.
‘Some of them do not have iPhones and I am not sure they even have land lines.
‘BT make enough money. They should maintain it and keep it functioning.
‘They are relentless in their desire to remove this cherished part of village heritage.’
The classic red telephone box was the creation of Sir Giles Gilbert Scott who was also responsible for Battersea Power Station and Liverpool Cathedral.
The Post Office staged a competition in 1924 for a uniform and space-saving design that would be instantly recognisable.
Scott’s design was inspired by the then 100-year-old tomb of architect Sir John Soane’s wife Eliza in St Pancras Old Cemetery in north London, and originally wanted it to be painted silver.
Most of those that remain today are the K6 model which was rolled out in 1935 in time for the Silver Jubilee of King George V.
The 8ft 3ins tall kiosks have been hailed as a British design classic and there were 35,000 dotting the country from Shetland to the Channel Islands by the outbreak of World War Two.
By the time production of the K6 came to an end in 1968, there were some 70,000 on streets around the country.
Fewer than 2,000 remain and many are now disconnected from the phone network having been converted to uses ranging from cafes to mini-libraries.
Many have been sold to collectors in the UK or abroad but some have listed status.
BT offers them for £1 to local communities who wish to convert them for other uses, and one was even reinstalled last month in Chiswick, West London for use as a defibrillator station.
Ofcom also forbids the disconnection of a phone box that is more than 400 metres from the nearest alternative if there is no mobile coverage in the area, a high frequency of accidents or suicides nearby, or if there are exceptional local circumstances – such as a risk of sudden flooding.
But that has not stopped the cull of the iconic K6’s which have been a mainstay of the British high street since they were first rolled in 1935.
‘Calls made from our public telephones have fallen by around 90 per cent in the past decade,’ said a BT spokesman.
‘We are continuing to review our remaining estate of payphones, removing those that are no longer being used, in line with rules set out by Ofcom.’
There is a thriving trade in uprooted K6’s which are highly sought after as garden ornaments or features in pubs and restaurants and currently available on eBay for up to £8,000.
But many villages have bought their redundant booths and put them to uses ranging from plant and book-swap stalls, to facilities for vital medical equipment such as defibrillators and first-aid stations.
But villagers in Sharrington insist that a telephone is their priority and have secured the backing of local MP Steffan Aquarone and their parish council who are petitioning Historic England to grant the kiosk listed status.
‘Norfolk is bad for phone signal and I think there are people in the village who do not have mobile phones,’ a parish council spokeswomen said.
‘We want a functioning phone and a phone box.’
Just forty K6’s remain in public use across the county and BT confirmed it is consulting with North Norfolk District Council on the removal of the payphone in Sharrington.
A local campaign saw off a previous attempt to disconnect the booth in 2016, but Mr Harris fears BT will not take no for an answer.
‘They are waging a war of attrition, and they have admitted that,’ he said.
‘They have even said if you succeed, we will come back again and again and again.
‘We have got to shield it from bullying BT.’