City's red phone boxes to share 'public messaging'

A city's famous row of red phone boxes, which are currently being refurbished, are set to include digital screens to share "public messaging and creative expression", a planning report has revealed.

Preston City Council has given consent for advertising to be displayed on the screens at the nine Grade II listed kiosks in the city, although separate planning permission is still required.

The phone boxes are currently in storage but the council plans to transform them and use them as "a platform for public information and creative content".

Eight of the phone boxes are arranged in pairs and form the longest line of traditional kiosks in the country, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

The phone boxes had fallen into disrepair before they were acquired by the council in 2021.

The authority then unveiled plans to give them a new lease of life in an age when their original purpose has been made largely redundant by the mobile phone.

They are set to be returned to their location alongside the former main Post Office building on Market Street in the city centre, although no date has yet been set.

A report to councillors said the kiosks would be versatile enough to be used as sources of "support for local businesses" and direction for visitors – as well as a method of what was described as "heritage interpretation, promoting understanding and appreciation" of nearby listed buildings.

The LDRS understands that the screens will hang on the inside of the phone boxes – one behind each pane of specially-toughened glass.

Council planning officers concluded that the changed appearance of the repurposed kiosks would have only "a minor impact" on the setting of neighbouring heritage assets.

They said the kiosks, which underwent a £75,000 refurbishment, would cause "no discernible harm" to the significance of the Grade I-listed war memorial, nor the ex-Post Office building and covered market canopy, both of which have Grade II status.

The display screens were also not considered damaging to the Market Place Conservation Area, which would experience what was assessed as a "minor degree of visual change" which would be "carefully managed and… not alter the defining character or appearance" of the locality.

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