A mountain rescue team is urging outdoor enthusiasts to oppose the removal of a phone box in a remote Lake District hamlet.
BT Payphones has applied for permission to remove the phone box at Seathwaite in Borrowdale.
Keswick Mountain Rescue Team said the public telephone is a vital means of calling help in an area without mobile phone reception.
A team spokesperson said: “Although this phone box may get little day-to-day use in this age of mobile phones, it has been and still is a real lifeline during emergencies.
“There is no phone reception on any network at the head of the valley and so it remains the only form of communication to the police and mountain rescue.”
The rescue team is asking walkers and other to make their views known on the online planning pages of Allerdale Borough Council, which has received the application from the subsidiary of the telecoms giant.
The Seathwaite phone lies on the route to Scafell Pike via Styhead Tarn and the Corridor Route, and sits in the shadow of Base Brown and Glaramara in the valley lying south-west of Rosthwaite.
Keswick Mountain Rescue Team, one of the busiest in the Lake District, covers the area around Seathwaite and responds to frequent calls for help from walkers and others in distress in the area.
Comments can be made on the Allerdale Borough Council website.
Stu
10 September 2016Please keep this very vital important phone...
It's a life saver.
Lancashire Lad
10 September 2016Done! - Just sent this message: -
Sirs,
I wish to place on record, my strongest objections to the proposed removal of the public telephone box located at Seathwaite Borrowdale Keswick Cumbria CA12 5XJ.
This public telephone is one of an ever decreasing number, and I consider it vital, not only for use by local residents and visitors, but also for its potential life saving capacity in mountain rescue incidents.
There is no mobile phone reception at head of Seathwaite, and this public telephone is very likely the ONLY means of making timely contact with rescue services for people requiring mountain rescue in that area.
Removal of this public phonebox would not only mean the loss of yet another public service. - There is every possibility that its removal will put lives at risk!
I urge in the strongest terms, that this public telephone box be retained in service.
Pete Watson
10 September 2016Dear Allerdale Council
I want to express my opinion of keeping this vital lifeline, In the form of a public telephone box in Seathwaite, Cumbria. Especially in cases of emergency where mobile phone reception is almost none existant.
Removal of this public service is likely to put lives at risk.
Please consider these possibilities whilst making your decision.
Regards
Pete Watson
Margaret
10 September 2016Everyone, including the Council, seems to be encouraging people (of all abilities and of none) to take to the hills the least they can do is oppose the removal of this public phone.
"Dear Allerdale Council
I want to express my opinion of keeping this vital lifeline, In the form of a public telephone box in Seathwaite, Cumbria. Especially in cases of emergency where mobile phone reception is almost none existant.
Removal of this public service is likely to put lives at risk.
Please consider these possibilities whilst making your decision.
Regards
Pete Watson"
Karen Melin
10 September 2016This public phone box is a vital lifeline that should NEVER be removed as mobile reception is non existent and much needed for the rescue services. Removal WILL put lives at risk.
If anything there should be an increased number of public telephones in remote, poor reception areas for locals and visitors.
I urge you to consider if it were your loved one lying in a life and death situation, colleagues unable to call mountain rescue, air ambulance, due to the phone box being removed, what would be your decision ?
Yours
Karen Melin
Chris Burke
10 September 2016Dear Allerdale Council /BT
I strongly urge you to leave the phonebox in place at Seathwaite farm, try any mobile network in the area and you'll see that there's no comms in the area. It's a vital means of communication that could save lives on occasion.
Yours Sincerely
Chris Burke
Paul Melin
10 September 2016Agree totally, the phone box should NEVER be removed. It is the ONLY means of lifesaving contact with the rescue services.
At present there is some security when walking in this beautiful area, family, friends, strangers, can contact the rescue services if ones getting into difficulty.
Regards
Paul Melin
Hayley
10 September 2016I strongly urge you to reconsider removing this phone box at Seathwaite, Cumbria.
If may not be used very often but it has been a life saver in the past and could well be again in the future. It could be the only means of communication in an emergency situation. Surely this is a good enough reason for it to remain.
Regards
Hayley
Michael
10 September 2016This phone must stay at all costs. That phone could be the only thing to save someone in critical condition and needs immediate support. Or even a car breakdown that's needs an urgent repair this phone box must stay and the fact its one of the first phone boxes placed in the lake district.
Ruth Woods
10 September 2016Please keep this phone - it may save a life
Richard
11 September 2016I submitted the following objection statement on the Council website:
"
It has come to my attention, via a Scouting mailing list, that the public phone box at Seathwaite, Borrowdale, Keswick, Cumbria, CA12 5XJ is in danger of being removed by British Telecom PLC (a.k.a. BT) due to it's low usage using the excuse of it being poorly used. This is very concerning,
I've been involved with both Scouting and the Duke Of Edinburgh Award (a.k.a. DofE) for about 40 years, and have also been involved with taking young people and other groups into the hills and mountains of these isles for very nearly as long. Before that, as a teenager, I was one of these young people being taken into the hills and mountains.
In recent years I have run a Gold DofE Expedition event based out of the campsite right next to where this phone box is located. We tried to use our mobile phones to be in contact with the youth up in the hills, but from the campsite it was almost impossible to get any mobile signal, and that was in good weather. As all involved with dealing with rescues in the hills, these very rarely happen in good weather, and in bad weather, especially in precipitation (of both rain and snow), and as BT well knows, radio (including mobile) signals deteriorate greatly, possibly to the point of impossibility. As well as it almost being impossible to receive a mobile signal, I had to drive to about halfway to Keswick to even start to get any 3G/4G (a.k.a. data) signal.
This is the primary reason for objecting to the proposal by BT to remove this, or in fact any, landline fed public telephone boxes.
Now picking up on the case put by BT in their proposal (dated 1/Sep/2016) as attached to your website.
They, BT, state that "Overall use of payphones has declined by over 90 per cent in the last decade". They don't state whether that is country wide (which is how it reads) or each of these individual public payphones. I'd suggest that you, the Council, request, possibly under the Freedom of Information Act, for exact figures for each and every phone box that BT are proposing to close/remove, including the breakdown of emergency, semi-emergency(i.e. to AA, RAC, garages, etc), and non-emergency (i.e. real private calls). With this information you can see whether this 90% claim holds up as being true, or just as flannel by BT.
They, BT, also state "with at least 98 per cent of the UK having either 3G or 4G coverage". This is again a case of not being clear. What they, BT, want you, the Council, to read from this is that 98% of the UK surface area is covered by this 3G or 4G (data) coverage. Where as if you look at the mobile phone network providers own websites, or that of OfCom and the like you see what is actually meant is 98% of the UK population has cover. Let's take as an example this specific area of the Lake District / Cumbria. (i.e. Keswick and the Borrowdale valley). I don't know the exact figures, and hopefully you do, but of the population of this area I'd guess that 98% of them live in Keswick (4821 in 2011) and the major villages surrounding it. By the time you get down to Rosthwaite and Seathwaite I'm guessing you are down to about 100 residents. 100 out of 5000 is just about 2%, so at or below the 98% of just your area quoted by BT, and that isn't taking into account the bigger towns and cities in either Cumbria, or the whole of the UK. If working with the whole of the UK figures (65million) then even Keswick at 5000 population is well below 0.01% of the 98% of the UK population covered by 3G or 4G data coverage.
So my second point is that at best BT is bamboozling you with the words they've used, and at worst are being deceitful in the way that they are arguing their case. I hope that you, the Council, take this into account when you throw out their proposal to close / remove these public payphone boxes.
"
Can
11 September 2016Hello Allerdale Council,
I wish to place on record, my strongest objections to the proposed removal of the public telephone box located at Seathwaite Borrowdale Keswick Cumbria CA12 5XJ. It'd be terrible if someone died because of it.
Sincerely
Can