Councillor Bill Thomas: "national treasure"

Councillor Thomas said the boxes were an important part of the country's heritage.

"They are as important as Yorkshire pudding or the red London bus."

BT has rejected the campaign as unnecessary.

Les King, a spokesman for BT, said he found the idea of the preservation strategy strange.

"There is no need for a campaign to save them. Our priority is to keep all the red kiosks for as long as possible."

There are more than 16,000 red phone boxes working in the country.

The first public payphone was introduced in 1884, eight years after the invention of the telephone.

The old style phone box was designed in 1926 by architect Sir Giles Gilbert Scott.

Drop in usage

British Telecom, which has a legal duty to provide a "universal service", currently operates about 141,000 boxes across the UK.

It has taken the decision not to add to this network because of a sharp drop in usage - down more than a third in less than two years as callers switch to mobile phones.

BT has already taken steps to recoup some of the lost income from phone boxes by increasing the minimum cost of a phone call to 20p.

Another measure being rolled out at the moment is the launch of multi-media phones, which can be used to surf the internet, send emails or text messages.