MORE than 90 phone boxes across the Forest and Wye Valley are being lined up for possible closure by BT because they are infrequently used.

The company says that, nationally, phone box use has declined by 90 per cent over the last decade and with technical developments such as 3G and 4G mobile networks, payphones are less important for contacting emergency services.

There are consultations underway on closing 74 boxes in the Forest, 14 in the Caldi­cot, Chepstow and Monmouth areas and three in Ross-on-Wye, a total of 91 payphones.

According to figures from BT, during the last year there were no calls made from 34 of the boxes in the Forest and five of those in Monmouthshire. A further 41 across the whole area were used less than once a week on average.

The most used boxes were at Thornwell Road in Chepstow with 259 calls over the last year, Tufthorn Close in Coleford with 217 and Parkend with 216.

Objections to the removal of boxes have to be sent to the planning departments at the Forest of Dean District Council, Monmouth­shire Council and Herefordshire Council.

They have be with the council by December 1 for the Forest, December 15 for Monmouth­shire and December 28 for Herefordshire.

BT says local communities can ‘adopt’ phone boxes for £1 to be put to other uses – last year Huntley Parish Council took over the box on the A40 in the village to house a defibrillator.

There is a mystery about the location of one of four boxes listed by BT in Cinderford.

According to the company there is a box – which was used six times last year – in the postcode area GL14 2XX. But that postcode does not appear on Royal Mail’s database of codes.

Cinderford town councillor and local taxi driver Mark Turner said he had tried to track down the box without success.

He said: “I know Cinderford like the back of my hand but I don’t know where it is.

“I’ve rung it and there is a ringing tone but it never gets answered.

“I’ve been around looking at places where there used to be phone boxes but it isn’t in any of them.

“The postcode seems to be an old one and it’s all a bit of a mystery, especially as there were six calls apparently made from it over the last year.”

•For a full list of the boxes BT propose to close follow the link below.