LIFELINE phone boxes are set to disappear from towns and villages across South Gloucestershire.

BT has announced it is hanging up on public payphones and will remove 60 phone booths from the region within months.

In Yate, the company is planning to axe the only phone box at the town's train station as well as in Shire Way, Sundridge Park and at the rank of shops in Brimsham Park.

Rural booths in places such as Acton Turville, Inglestone Common, Tormarton, Rangeworthy, Rudgeway, Westerleigh, Horton and Littleton-on-Severn also face the chop.

Local councillors have spoken out against BT's decision amid concern that removing so many of the kiosks will leave elderly people stranded and motorists without a lifeline phone in an emergency.

Yate town councillor Sue Evan-Jones said: "Phone boxes may not be used very much but when they are it is a crisis.

"A lot of booths these days only take cards but when you need to use one, it is an emergency and you have not planned for it so you only have cash."

Cllr Chris Willmore said: "Some phone boxes are still needed. There are a lot of elderly people in Sundridge Park for instance, many of whom do not have a mobile phone.

"When we get to the point when everybody has a mobile phone then fine, get rid of phone boxes, but we are not there yet.

"I believe phone boxes are a service we need in society."

In Britain, 99 per cent of householders have a home phone and 85 per cent of adults use a mobile phone.

Rick Thompson, project liaison officer for BT Payphones, said: "Striking a balance between the growing commercial pressures and providing an effective payphone service is vital, and BT has managed to keep its payphone business viable by careful management of costs.

"However, this challenge is becoming ever more demanding, so BT constantly needs to review payphone usage and on occasions looks to re-align the public payphone provision more closely to the reducing demand that still exists."

BT operates 61,792 public phone kiosks in the UK but the firm said only 40 per cent of the booths have their running costs covered by call use. The company will announce its decision in the coming months.