BRIGG TO LOSE PAYPHONE

Brigg Town Council is to have the traditional and long-serving payphone at the Angel Suite removed.
This is because it is rarely used, so many people now having mobile phones they take with them to functions and meetings at our community venue.
The saving to the public purse will be £300 a year.
Should anyone without a mobile phone find themselves in the Angel Suite and in need of a payphone, there's one nearby in the Market Place - of the red box variety.
We will now switch to Sir Michael Caine mode and say: "Not a lot of people know that..."
.....The law gave the Press a right to have phones provided for their use by local councils.
Section 100A of the Local Government (Access to Information) Act 1985 says: "While the meeting is open to the public, duly accredited representatives of newspapers attending the meeting for the purpose of reporting the proceedings for those newspapers shall, so far as practicable, be afforded reasonable facilities for taking their report and, unless the meeting is held in premises not belonging to the council or not on the telephone, for telephoning the report at their own expense."
Glanford Borough Council afforded the Press  a wonderful telephone in a booth near the entrance to Hewson House, where you could go to ring through urgent reports to copy-takers at head office - long before computer laptops arrived at local newspapers.
As with so much legislation on the statue books, the Local Government (Access to Information) Act 1985 has clearly been overtaken by modern technology and is in need of an update.
Provision of wi-fi access for the Press to upload reports of council meetings via "the cloud" would be more relevant today.