Say Farewell to 20,000 of BT’s UK Public Payphone Boxes by 2022

The rise of mobile phones has meant that very few people see any need for BT’s public payphone boxes anymore and as a result the operator has decided to scrap 13,400 of them over the next three years, with an additional 6,600 expected to be removed by 2022.

At their height the United Kingdom was home to around 92,000 of BT’s public payphones but this has since declined to c.40,000 and half of those are loss making. The maintenance costs alone for BT’s remaining boxes comes to about £6 million per year.

However it’s noted that around 2,400 of the remaining pay phones have such a historic status that they’ve already been designated as Grade II listed buildings and it’s possible that more of them could achieve a similar status.

A BT Spokesperson said:

“BT is committed to providing a public payphone service, but with usage declining by over 90% in the last decade, we continue to review and remove payphones which are no longer used.

In all instances where there’s no other payphone within 400 metres, we’ll ask for consent from the local authority to remove the payphone. Where we receive objections from the local authority, we won’t remove the payphone.

Payphone removals are carried out in strict adherence to Ofcom guidelines and, where appropriate, with the consent of local authorities.”

Mind you it’s not all bad news because BT has already announced that they intend to replace over 1,000 pay phones in major cities across the United Kingdom with their new InLinkUK (formerly LinkUK) smart kiosks, which offer free Gigabit public WiFi (shared capacity), free UK phone calls, USB device charging and a range of other digital services to help people passing within the vicinity. You can’t miss these kiosks because of their unusual design and the huge HD display on the side.