A COUNTY COUNCILLOR has urged communities to follow the example of his ward by buying their old telephone box for just £1 each.

Residents in Llanynys, the hamlet near Denbigh, have been volunteering to refurbish the disused phone box outside their parish church to turn it into a life-saving public asset.

They plan to set up a defibrillator, which could be used by first responders in an emergency.

Recently, British Telecom or BT called on communities across the county to take ownership of some of their obsolete telephone boxes for as little as £1.

Figures from BT show that in Denbighshire, there are still 23 available for adoption, while there are 20 remaining in Conwy, 11 in Flintshire, seven in Wrexham, 26 in Gwynedd and seven on Anglesey.

Llandyrnog county councillor, Merfyn Parry, whose ward includes Llanynys, felt saving such facilities for rural communities was important.

He said: “Llanynys community council have bought the phone box there for £1 from BT. The phone is not in it anymore but we’re in the process of refurbishing the phone box and we’ve been given funding from the community council to put a defibrillator in it.

“Because it’s on the national cycle path it can be of benefit to a much wider group of people than just the residents alone. There is a defibrillator in Rhewl a few miles away but that is just too far in a life threatening emergency so to have this here in Llanynys is of great benefit to the people of the area.

“Hopefully it will never have to get used but it will be there if we do, which should provide some peace of mind.

“It’s excellent to have a scheme like this here and I think that every village should work hard to take advantage.”

Across the UK thousands of the boxes have been adopted with uses including book exchanges, pubs and even a tiny disco in one village in Devon.

Katherine Bradley, BT’s senior payphones commercial and operations manager, said: “We’re pleased to be giving even more local communities the chance to adopt a phone box. With nearly 400 payphones now adopted across Wales, this is a fantastic opportunity for communities to own a piece of history.

“The opportunities are endless and we’ve already seen some amazing transformations. Applying is easy and quick and we’re always happy to speak to communities about adopting our traditional BT red payphone boxes.”