The K8 phone box in its heyday.
Photograph: BTThe last time that red phone boxes were in danger of disappearing from Britain's streets there was a hue and cry. In the 1980s, newly privatised BT threatened to replace them all with a newer tinny model, in what symbolised for some the vandalism of Thatcherism on the charm of Britain's nationalised past.
Eventually, Giles Gilbert Scott's classic phone-box design was saved for the nation by a successful campaign to get them listed. Thousands still remain despite the neglect of phones kiosks due to the popularity of mobiles.
There is unlikely to be quite as much fuss about a new threat to a later model of red phone box. But, according to some, there should be. They are concerned about the fate of the K8 phone box, a rationalised version of earlier models designed by Bruce Martin that, it is claimed, is an icon of the 1960s.
The Twentieth Century Society, a group that champions modern architecture, says it wants to save them from extinction.
The K8 might look like a dated design for a largely obsolete technology, but the society says it's an ingenious and modern classic. "The final stage in the lineage of a design that has become nothing short of a global icon, a symbol of Britain," it says.
The design was chosen by Tony Benn when he was postmaster general at the height of Labour's enthusiasm for white heat technology. Since then the K8 has suffered a sorry decline. There were once 11,000 of them and now there only 12, including 4 in Swindon.
The society says that all 12 should be listed, and believe it or not BT says it supports the idea. Should they be spared?
