BT will be asked to keep two Dorchester phone boxes – at Maud Road and Fordington Cross.

They are on the list of almost 70 across West Dorset which the phone company wants to remove because, it claims, they get little use.

But Dorchester town councillors say the use they have had in the last year justifies keeping them – the Maud Road box, outside a row of shops, was used 95 times and the one at Fordington, also close to a shop, 75 times.

The town council has decided not to object to the removal of two other boxes in the town – in Mellstock Avenue which was used 19 times and in Wessex Road which was not used at all.

Town councillors at a planning committee on Monday evening said the two boxes they wanted to keep were in, or adjoining, areas of relative deprivation and where older, more vulnerable people were living, many of whom might not have a landline or a mobile phone.