A NUMBER of public telephone kiosks could be removed from Dawlish unless the town council can persuade BT to leave them where they are.
The six boxes – at the Esplanade, Warren Road post office, the Strand car park and Brunswick Place – could be decommissioned by the company in a cost-cutting exercise.
They say there are enough telephone kiosks in the town already.
Dawlish town council has until March 18 to persuade BT of the need to keep the boxes operating.
The company's consultation period on the proposals closes then.
And Cllr John Anthony, chairman of the finance and general purposes committee, was determined to lobby BT.
He said: 'The town council is unanimous in its view that this would not be good for the town.
'Not everybody in Dawlish has a mobile phone or even a land line.
'And reception can be poor for some mobile phone users too.
So we will ask BT to think again about these proposals.'
he said: 'As an absolute minimum we will oppose the removal of the kiosks at Dawlish Warren because of its remote location.
'And a minimum requirement in Dawlish would be a call box at the east and west end of the Lawn.
'Unless BT can show us absolutely nobody uses the telephones we will oppose this.
'The company have said the proposals are about improving the service. I fail to see how closing public telephones does that.
'But we will make our views known to the company.'
Les King, for BT, said the removal of the kiosks was necessary.
He said: 'In each of the locations where we plan to remove payphones there are one or more payphones on the same site.
'The removal is in line with a national initiative to review the use of pay phones.
'There has been a 37 per cent drop in phone box calls over the last two years.
'The review includes payphones that are losing money and have another payphone serving the same location.
'The aim is to thin out payphones where there are too many boxes.'