PHONE booths are set to make a comeback in Wrexham – and they might just save your life too.
Having become virtually obsolete over the last 20 years thanks to the advent of smartphones, five applications have now been submitted to Wrexham County Borough Council’s planning department to install new phone kiosks in the city centre.
If approved the plans would see two phone booths situated on Regent Street, two on Lord Street and one on Queen Street.
On Regent Street they would be outside Bargain Buys and Primark. The Lord Street kiosks would be near Contact Wrexham and Ladbrokes while on Queen Street the kiosk would be next to Sports Direct.
While they take some design cues from the traditional British phone box there are a few differences.
They feature a sheltered roof and a partial wind barrier on one side and will have an updated version of the traditional payphone. The current model will accept debit and credit cards as well as coins.
The biggest surprise is that each kiosk will have an integrated defibrillator, so if there is a medical emergency in the city centre ambulance workers would have quick, easy access to a machine nearby saving valuable minutes.
“There are more than 30,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests in the UK each year and currently less than one in 10 survive,” according to supporting information included in the application by operators New World Phones.
“Without immediate intervention with a defibrillator, most cardiac arrests are fatal. Every minute without CPR and a defibrillator, reduces survival chances by up to 10%.
“NWP is partnered with the Community Heartbeat Trust (CHT), the charity working to support communities in the provision of defibrillators. Once installed, the defibrillator would be registered on the national defibrillator network known as The Circuit. Its precise location would be known to ambulance services.”
They will not just help in medical emergencies either. Digital touch screens in each kiosk will give out emergency contact numbers for police, fire and ambulance (for foreign visitors unfamiliar with 999) as well as contact details for addiction support service, Childline, The Samaritans and more.
An accessibility feature on the screens will move the interactive buttons on the screens lower so they can easily be reached by wheelchair users.
The kiosks will also act as public wifi points thanks to a partnership between the operators – New World Payphones – and Virgin Media giving one of Wales’ leading Smart Cities more comprehensive city centre wifi coverage.
Screens – which are 50% more efficient than previous-generation LED panels – will also feature ads, council news and wayfinding information, helping visitors find places of local interest to visit and giving them useful information about them. Sensors will adjust the brightness based on daylight levels to ensure they are visible without being too bright.
Kiosks will also be able to block nuisance calls. If an excessive number of calls to a single personal number are made they can be flagged for anti-social behaviour and blocked.
