The company has told Harborough District Council it has until Wednesday, July 2 to complete a public consultation and feed back any concerns.

There are currently 94 payphones in the district and 13 in Lutterworth, seven in Harborough and a further 15 in rural villages are on the list to be axed.

Ex-councillor John Fort, of Billesdon, said: “We used to have two phone boxes in our village and now we have one. I think it’s essential for the village to retain the phone box. I can understand that people use mobile phones more now but I would have thought that some people rely on phone boxes on a regular basis still.

“In my opinion it would be absolutely unacceptable to leave a village with no public phone.”

A BT spokesman said: “BT is committed to providing a public payphone service, however over the years as usage has declined BT has been constantly reviewing and where necessary rationalising its public payphone estate in order to meet demand. This is nothing new, and we will continue to do so.

“Almost 60 per cent of our payphones are unprofitable, with almost 6,000 phones making less than one call a month. Payphone usage has halved in the last two years and calls are still declining at 20 per cent year on year.

“In all instances where there is not another payphone within 400 metres we need the local authority’s consent to remove the kiosk and if there is a clear social need for those phones then they won’t be removed.”