PHONE boxes are just fronts for advertising and councils should be able to stop them being installed, a councillor claims.

The news comes as council planning officers have rejected a fresh bid to install new booths in the town centre. A previous bid by a separate company is currently subject to appeal.

Town centre councillor David Smith has written to Bournemouth West MP Conor Burns calling on him to lobby for a change in law allowing councils more powers to block the booths.

The Local Government Association (LGA) recently called booths a “relic of a bygone era” and called on the Government to change planning rules, having seen a nationwide 900 per cent rise in applications for phone booths in the past two years.

Cllr Smith told the Echo: "As a council we are trying to de-clutter the street, and it is frustrating that these telecoms companies can have permitted rights to install boxes wherever they want.

"It is a problem all across the country. It is high time the Government took action to ensure local councillors have proper control in these matters."

He said existing phone boxes in the town were "filthy" and "unloved", and some were commonly used for drug dealing as their calls cannot be traced.

"They are proxy advertising billboards for phone companies, I rarely see any of them used.

"There is no need for more than one or two in strategic locations."

Phone booths currently do not require planning permission but applicants must apply to the council to ensure they have ‘permitted development rights’. During this process councils can block applications if they are concerned about the locations chosen.

It is on this basis that council officers have blocked applications by Infocus Public Networks Ltd for 10 booths in Old Christchurch Road, the Square, Commercial Road and Holdenhurst Road.

The previously rejected bid by Euro Payphone Ltd for seven booths is at appeal.

Ofcom says 94 per cent of adults in the UK use mobile phones.

Martin Tett, the LGA’s planning spokesman, said: “While there is still a limited need for some telephone boxes in our town centres and cities, for example for emergencies, the number of applications councils have seen is simply staggering.

“Companies are exploiting a loophole in the law to allow what is tantamount to Trojan telephone boxes being used as advertising spaces rather than the original purpose of providing a place for people to use a phone.”

The phone box companies claim there is still a need for their services.

Last year, Euro Payphone executive Tom Fisher told the Echo: “Despite a decline in use, public call boxes provide a service that is valued and needed by many people without a phone or those away from home, who cannot, for whatever reason, use their mobile.

“Many disadvantaged and vulnerable consumers still rely on public call boxes.”