Hundreds of villages across the West have signed up to a bargain £1 deal to save their iconic red phone boxes – but without the phones inside, the Western Daily Press can reveal.

Parish councils across the region were given the stark choice by BT to decide the future of their village’s public call boxes by last night – and few have been saved.

The deadline for the latest round of BT phone box cuts passed at the end of November – yesterday – and with mobile phones and the internet ubiquitous, few rural phone boxes are likely to be kept.

Parish councils were given the choice of adopting their phone boxes for £500 a year – half the annual maintenance costs – or spending £1 to keep the red box and leave it with no phone line. And with few people using the phones, but most people loving the red boxes, BT said they’ve been inundated with the £1 buy-out option.

For decades they were the stalwarts of rural communication, the cast-iron beacons that kept villagers in touch with the outside world, in the days before the internet and mobile phones.

Now they are barely used, with even the most technophobic among us texting, calling and logging on to the 21st-century communication revolution.

But the iconic red phone boxes aren’t going to be lost forever to villages in the West. Instead they will end up like the other community facilities of days gone by – the parish pump and the well – preserved as a historical oddity for children to look at and ask: ‘Is that what people used before we all had mobiles?’

The parish councils will now be able to do what they like with them.

“Some are already planning to turn them into ‘information points’ with village noticeboards and leaflets; others are looking to transform them into stands for elaborate floral displays, with an eye on the best-kept village competitions.

Many will just leave them to serve as a historic reminder of the 20th century’s ‘primitive’ methods of communication, just as the picturesque village wishing well showed how 18th century villagers got their water.

One parish council already making plans for its red kiosks is Lea, in north Wiltshire. It has three – one in Lea, and others in the neighbouring hamlets of Garsdon and Cleverton. “We chose to pay £2 to keep Lea’s and Garsdon’s, but Cleverton’s is in a bad state anyway, so that’s going,” said parish clerk John Parmiter.

“We understand that hardly anyone uses the phone box any more. I live opposite the one in Lea and I don’t think I’ve seen anyone in there for months.

“We couldn’t justify the burden on the village taxpayers to pay £500 a year to keep the line in. But they are part of the rural scene and they will stay.

“They will become information points for the village, with noticeboards up inside. The one in Garsdon is also useful – it’s by a T-junction and is very handy for giving directions.” please keep the ‘directions quote in, it’s where I got my headline fromhe added. “In years to come they’ll be part of the village’s history.”

BT spokesman Chris Orum said the firm listened to rural opinion when there was an outcry at phone boxes disappearing from villages.

He said: “Since 2002 we’ve probably removed 30,000 phone boxes, but this is a new way for villages to preserve them.”

Is your parish council taking on your red phone box? What plans do you have for yours? – email wdnews@bepp.co.uk.