BT must work closely with mobile phone companies to ensure good coverage in rural areas, MP Harriett Baldwin has said.

She was speaking in the wake of the announcement that BT has listed more than 30 phone boxes around the district for closure because they are not paying their way.

Mrs Baldwin, the MP for West Worcestershire, said: “Having spoken to the mobile phone companies about their coverage plans for West Worcestershire, I will be urging BT to work closely to with the four operators to make sure that there is a strong 3G of 4G signal at every area where a box closure is proposed.

"I am also confident that individual parishes will want to make the case to protect their rural phone boxes and I urge people who have a strong view on this matter to take part in the consultation process.”

Viv Nelson of Little Malvern and Welland Parish Council, where a phone box in Drake Street is on the hit list, said: "We've been given very little time to discuss this. The offer of allowing the village to take it on for just £1 sounds generous, but we'll have to find the money to maintain it.

"It would only take one vandal attack to saddle us with expensive repairs.

"There's the telecommunications issue as well. We've got 152 new houses coming to the village, some of them social housing. Most people have mobiles, but not everyone, even today."

BT says that with the rise of mobile phones, the use of phone boxes had fallen by over 90 per cent in the last decade, with half of the boxes on the list not being used at all in the last year.

The list includes boxes in urban locations as Malvern and Upton, as well as in villages such as Welland and Castlemorton.

BT has launched a consultation period which lasts until January 8.

A BT spokesman said: “BT is committed to providing a public payphone service, but with usage declining by over 90 per cent in the last decade, we’ve continued to review and remove payphones which are no longer needed."