PEOPLE in Oxfordshire are being invited to ‘adopt a phonebox’ during the coronavirus pandemic.
Phone company BT, which has 37 kiosks up for grabs in the county, is asking people to come up with creative ways to use them.
Dozens of communities have already snapped up the chance, with one group turning their red box blue to thank the NHS, and another one turning theirs into a communal food larder.
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People can adopt their local phone box for just £1 and in Oxfordshire there are 37 available, including two in Oxford city centre.
In total, more than 6,000 phone boxes have been adopted by communities since BT set up its ‘Adopt a Kiosk’ scheme in 2008.
Now the company is encouraging people inspired by the community spirit fostered by the coronavirus pandemic to use the abandoned boxes as a focal point to bring neighbours together and to help good causes in their area.
In Oxford, people have been adopting phone boxes since 2017, when a disused city centre kiosk outside the Covered Market was transformed into an ‘office pod’ complete with printer, scanner and wifi.
In Weston-on-the-Green near Bicester villagers turned theirs into a miniature library in 2018, an idea which was also taken up by residents in Faringdon.
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Weston-on-the-Green village hall committee chairman Andrew Wilson said at the time that the phone box library was a ‘wonderful addition to the village’.
Many more old phone boxes across Oxfordshire have been repurposed to store lifesaving public-access defibrillators, which can be used to restart the heart of someone having a cardiac arrest.
In Great Milton, villagers did that last year with help from Wheatley construction firm Greenford.
Company director Simon Rogers said at the time: “With more defibrillators available now we thought it would be an important thing to have.
“We are only too pleased to have provided this life-saving equipment and telephone box for our local community.”
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During the coronavirus pandemic, the Driven Forward Charity in Windsor has turned a phone box into a donation point for items for the local foodbank.
Where electricity is available, that also means adopted boxes can be used as housings for defibrillators.
In total more than 50 phone boxes have already been adopted in Oxfordshire, but BT says 37 are still available.
Some of them are:
l Parks Road, Oxford
l Worcester Street, Oxford
l Wantage Market Place
l Oxford Road, Banbury
l Goosey, near faringdon
l Church Road, Cholsey
l Wallingford Bridge
l Wallingford Market Place
l Chipping Norton Market Place
l Thame High Street
l Nuneham Courtenay
l Clifton Hampden High Street
l Little Wittenham
l Bicester Market Square (X2)
l Witney Market Square
l Eynsham High Street
BT enterprise director Jon Pollock said: “We’ve seen some amazing transformations of our phone boxes by communities who’ve adopted our iconic red payphones during the coronavirus pandemic.
“With more than 6,250 payphones already adopted across the UK, the scheme has proved to be really popular and there are still plenty of kiosks available should communities want to preserve them.
“The opportunities for communities are endless and we’re pleased to be giving even more local communities the chance to get involved."
Go to bt.com/adopt
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