A few years ago I noticed, as I drove along, there were longer and longer gaps between seeing a public telephone. The more I looked the less I could find. What was happening to them?? Well, it turns out BT is ripping them out at a staggering rate – from the heyday of 140,000, there are now under 30,000.
The ever popular twee K6 – red phone box – are being ‘saved’ through public adoption and used as all manner of pointlessness, but the 1980s KX series are just being removed and erased from our public spaces.
Me being me, decided to record them when I saw them. I am not a phone box nerd, but I do recognise when a utilitarian community asset is being removed purely on a profit basis! I understand the, ‘Everyone has mobile phones these days’ argument, but it is flawed. We don’t live in isolation and it is our duty to look after everyone in society – not rip out infrastructure because it doesn’t make you money.
These photos are from the follow up book to There go the pips… A photographic love letter to Britain’s phone boxes due out in 2024.