BT is seeking the removal of the telephone kiosk at the junction of Algernon Road and Ladywell Road. It says the payphone is no longer used.
Payphone calls across the country have dropped by over 90 per cent due to mobile phone ownership.
BT says the disused kiosks are magnets for graffiti, vandalism, fly-posting, and littering as well as being expensive to maintain.
When BT proposes removing the last public phone box in an area, it must consult the local authority – in this case Lewisham council.
The council has a 90-day consultation window to formally object if the phone is still deemed a vital community lifeline.
Lewisham is now seeking comments from local residents who have any concerns about the removal of the payphone.
It says any concerns should be submitted to the council at Planning@lewisham.gov.uk by 24 August 2026, quoting reference DC/26/144970.
Concerns may relate to local need for the payphone, emergency use, and any evidence of continued community reliance on it..
Local residents have complained about the unused kiosk, saying it is now just an eyesore attracting lots of illegal flyposting. It has also become a focus for the illegal dumping of bags of rubbish.
Ladywell originally featured the classic cast-iron red telephone kiosks. But across Lewisham most of these were replaced by BT during the late 1980s and 1990s for modern, vandal-resistant designs that were easier to clean but lacked historic character.
Local communities have often fought to save the traditional red heritage box, retrofitting them with life-saving defibrillators (AEDs) or repurposing them as mini-libraries, toy swaps,and local history info points.
The Brockley Society transformed a disused red telephone box on the corner of Lewisham Way and Tyrwhitt Road into a public micro-library.