A TOWN council says no one responded to a public appeal for comments about the proposed removal of a pay phone box.

Some residents have slammed the disappearance of the box last month from the corner of Walford Road and The Avenue in Ross-on-Wye, which was used for over a year as a community library.

But town council clerk Sarah Robson said: "While the red heritage telephone boxes can be adopted for various uses, such as a community library, the modern glass telephone boxes, such as this one, can only be used to house a defibrillator."

And she added that while councillors had decided not to install a defib, no one had responded to BT notices put in the windows of the call box giving people 42 days to submit any comments about removing it.

The council was consulted on its removal in 2019 after the call box had only been used for one phone call in the previous 12 months

And while councillors investigated adopting the box for a defib, for various reasons they "decided not to and supported removal".

The clerk also said the person who initially put the books in the box in 2020 had contacted the council to say she was "aware that it was being decommissioned and removed, but thought it may be useful while the library and charity shops were closed during lockdown to make use of it as a book swap".

The woman also said the books were put under a tree by the wall after the box’s removal three weeks ago, keeping them dry, and she had been able to take most of them to charity shops.

The clerk added: "She concluded that as much as she thinks this is a loss for those that used it, perhaps it may encourage more people to use the library instead, so we don’t lose that as wellâ¦

"Now that the local library is back open it would be fantastic if more people use this community asset to ensure Ross Library remains viable.

"I also understand there is a community library (a Little Free Library www.littlefreelibrary.org ) provided at Merrivale Lane, Ross-on-Wye, which isn’t in a phone box, but is nearby to the location of where the phone box was removed."

After people took to social media to express their disappointment about the removal of the phone box library, former mayor Daniel Lister posted: "As a town councillor I was aware it was being used as a library and used it myself too when passing."

He had "asked for it (the phone box) to be kept", which could be confirmed by council minutes, and he was "sad" to see it go.

He also said there was support on the council for it to stay to house a defib, but it didn’t get passed because there was already one opposite, with several others in the nearby area.

Cllr Lister said he would explore the provision of an alternative pop-up library facility, but added: "We must not forget the importance of our public libraries and the more pop-up ones we have, the less our public libraries get used and then may close due to lack of use.

"I’m not against these pop ups, but it would be devastating if we lost our public library."

Claire Edwards, who has spoken out about the "loss of a community asset", is still urging people to email the council ([email protected]).

"Tell them how much you miss it and what it meant to you and ask them if an alternative community library can be found on the site or close by," she said.