‘Ugly’ 1980 phone boxes deserve to be listed like their classic red counterparts, campaigners say

They have been criticized as ‘ugly’ and boring and lack the iconic style of the red telephone boxes they replaced, but campaigners say the modern KX100 model telephone kiosk deserves a place in design history.

The Twentieth Century Society (C20 Society) wants to get a handful of phone booths listed before they disappear completely.

Thousands of booths that are no longer used are regularly removed by British Telecom, with the C20 Society predicting that a ‘mass extinction’ of the kiosks is highly likely.

From a peak of just over 100,000 public telephone booths in the mid-1990s. there are now fewer than 20,000 left in the entire country.

With its glass and steel structure, the KX100 model was first introduced in 1985 to replace Sir Giles Gilbert Scott’s classic red K2 and K6 boxes.

They have been criticized as ‘ugly’ and lack the iconic style of the red telephone boxes they replaced, but campaigners say the modern KX100 model telephone kiosk should be retained.

The KX100 model was introduced in 1985 to replace Sir Giles Gilbert Scott’s classic (and more beloved) red K2 and K6 boxes

They were designed to be airier, vandal-resistant and wheelchair accessible, but have never been embraced by the public in the same way as the red telephone boxes.

Despite this, the C20 Society says they represent a ‘final flourish of design-led telecommunications infrastructure in the public domain’.

The Thirties Society, the forerunner of the C20 Society, successfully campaigned for 3,000 Gilbert Scott red telephone boxes to be listed in the 1980s and 1990s and now wants to do the same for the KX100.

This time, however, the C20 Society has hand-picked three stands to preserve: one each in England, Scotland and Wales.

These include the example at Dunsop Bridge in Lancashire, the 100,000th kiosk installed in the country, as well as in Scotland, a contender for the country’s most remote and scenic telephone box, near Maaruig, on the Isle of Harris.

Meanwhile, in Wales, the C20 Society wants to preserve an experimental model found at the Center for Alternative Technology in Machynllethm, which is powered by a solar panel on top of the kiosk and an adjacent 5.5 meter high wind turbine.

Oli Marshall, campaign director, said The guard: ‘C20 Society has been the guardian of Britain’s telephone boxes for forty years, and we are now reviving our famous campaign in an attempt to save a handful of undervalued KX100s – the last in the line of the public telephone box.

‘It may be seen as the ‘ugly duckling’ compared to the iconic red telephone boxes, but with these three kiosks we have identified the very best examples across the country that deserve their place in the history books.’

He added that there was “irony” in the preservation of the kiosk that replaced the much-loved red telephone boxes.

Mr Marshall said: ‘Once the killer of the classic red kiosks that we fought so vigorously against, but which is now itself being put forward for heritage protection.’

This phone box at Dunsop Bridge in Lancashire, the 100,000th kiosk installed in the country, is one of three that campaigners want to save

This experimental model, found at the Center for Alternative Technology in Machynllethm, is powered by a solar panel on top of the kiosk and an adjacent 5.5 meter high wind turbine

In Scotland, this pay booth is a contender for the country’s most remote and scenic payphone, near Maaruig, on the Isle of Harris