Britain's iconic red telephone boxes are set for a new lease of life, with plans to convert up to 100 of them into coffee shops, sweet shops, and shoe shine stands. The initiative, led by the Red Kiosk Company, aims to repurpose the historic K6 kiosks for the mobile phone era, offering small business opportunities and jobs for the long-term unemployed.
Under the BT Adopt a Phonebox scheme, local authorities and charities can acquire a box for as little as £1. The Red Kiosk Company will then refurbish each kiosk at a cost of £5,000, transforming them into miniature businesses. Twelve planning applications for such conversions have already been approved in London.
The scheme has already proved successful in Brighton, where two disused phone boxes were turned into Red Box Coffee and Ice Cream shops. In Scotland, a council created the country's smallest internet cafe in a box in Ballogie, Aberdeenshire, complete with tea and coffee facilities and an honesty box for payments.
Other innovative uses include fitting a defibrillator in a box in Glendaruel, Argyll, following a suggestion by a local girl guide. The location, popular with hikers, had previously seen heart problems among visitors. BT offers free red paint for boxes that are adapted to house defibrillators.
The K6 kiosk, designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, was first introduced in 1936, with 8,000 distributed across the UK. Of the 669 remaining, 100 are earmarked for conversion. The Adopt a Kiosk scheme, launched in 2008, has already seen 1,500 boxes adopted by 2011.
