THE PROPOSED closure of public phone boxes in North Yorkshire has led to fears of it creating a life or death situation in mobile phone blackspots.

BT has proposed to remove dozens of public payphones from rural areas which often have limited mobile phone signal, due to a massive decline in usage.

But residents of rural villages in both the North York Moors National Park and Yorkshire Dales National Park fear without phone boxes in areas of poor or no mobile signal, there would be no way to contact emergency services or breakdown vehicles.

Freda Shaw, from Ampleforth, on the edge of the North York Moors National Park, said she believed getting rid of the proposed 30 phone boxes currently under consultation would be disastrous and could mean the different between life and death.

She said: “Wherever you have rural areas, you have poor mobile signal. If there is a medical emergency or a car break down, if there is no phone box nearby then what do you do?

“Another concern is that in a very rural area, anyone wanting to report domestic abuse or child abuse often can’t use a mobile phone because the call could be traced, so a phone box is the safest way.

“Parish councils would have the power to add the cost of the phone box into its precept but it shouldn’t have to do that, surely they can’t be that expensive.”

She added: “These phone boxes can act as a lifeline and if they are gone it really could lead to a life or death situation.”

BT is carrying out a consultation seeking the views of the public and parish and town councils, on 30 boxes in the North York Moors and 47 across the Yorkshire Dales.

A spokesman said: “BT is committed to providing a public payphone service, but with usage declining by 90 per cent in the last decade, we’ve continued to review and remove payphones which are no longer needed.

"Any removal of payphones is carried out in strict adherence to the Ofcom guidelines and, where appropriate, with the consent of local authorities. 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.

"We will continue to actively promote our Adopt a Kiosk scheme to all councils while maintaining the payphones that remain.”