A parish council is seeking people’s views before a village phone box becomes a mini-library. 

The red phone box on Calstock Quay is the only remaining working public phone in the whole of the Tamar Valley parish – while it’s a bit worse for wear, it’s stayed operational because of the historic poor mobile phone signal in the lower part of the village. 

But in the last 12 months, says the council, there have only been six calls made from the box – five to the speaking clock and one to an 0800 number. On this basis, Calstock Parish Council feels that it would be better if the box became a community asset. 

The Council could  adopt the phone box for a nominal fee, and British Telecom (BT) would  disconnect the service and repaint it before handing it over.  BT would  continue to pay for the electricity to power the internal light.   

The award-winning Calstock in Bloom group are proposing to use the phone box as an honesty library and say they’re prepared to look after it.   

Before the council makes any decision, they are seeking the views of residents on whether to keep it as a working phone box or whether to repurpose it as a community asset. 

Parish Councillor, Alastair Tinto, has posted a poll on the Calstock Community Forum asking people to indicate their preferred option. 

Comments or suggestions can also be emailed to [email protected]