Red phone boxes get new lease of life as defibrillators and mini museums

Thousands of red phone boxes are being offered to communities across the country to be reimagined as defibrillator stations or even art galleries.

Nearly 4,000 of BT’s boxes from across the UK are now available through the Adopt a Kiosk programme, which allows local authorities to buy them for just £1.

Since 2008, more than 6,600 of the booths have been given away and transformed into various local services, including defibrillator units, mini history museums, art galleries and book exchanges.

BT said public-use phone boxes were slowly made redundant by the “phenomenal growth in mobiles”, adding that mobile coverage has also “improved significantly in recent years due to investment in masts, particularly in rural areas”.

Martin Fagan, national secretary of the Community Heartbeat Trust charity, which is helping install defibrillators in local kiosks, said the scheme was helping to save lives.