The ‘smallest nightclub in the world’ has opened in the South Hams, as the 5,000th BT phone box is repurposed.

Kingsbridge Town Council has bought the phone box at the top of Fore Street, outside the police station, from BT for £1 and BT helped installed a music system, a glitter ball and lighting as part of the celebrations around reaching this national milestone of the 5,000th ‘adopted’ phone box.

Instead of making phone calls, the phone box will play records such as ‘Hanging on the Telephone’ by Blondie, 1978, and ‘Telephone Line’ by Electric Light Orchestra, 1976. Music lovers will be able to listen to a record by paying £1 to use a dial-a-disc-type record system.

All proceeds will be donated to the charity @115, at the top of Fore Street, which supports adults with learning difficulties.

Cllr Chris Povey, Kingsbridge Town Council, said: “This red phone box is an important part of Kingsbridge’s heritage and we were determined to keep it, but we also wanted to do something different with it - something really eye catching so we came up with making it the world’s smallest nightclub.

“Very importantly, it will also help raise funds for a Kingsbridge charity, which provides a vital service for the local community.”

The Kingsbridge phone box - well over 60 years old - appears to beat the current holder of the ‘world’s smallest nightclub’ title, Club 28 in Rotherham, which reportedly holds a maximum of seven people, including the DJ.

The Kingsbridge phone box nightclub has little more than half the floor space of the Rotherham disco and will usually only accommodate one music lover at a time…or two at a squeeze.

Of the 5,000 adopted kiosks across the UK, the Kingsbridge phone box is believed to be the only one to be used as a disco. The most likely uses for adopted boxes are as art galleries, notice and information boards, book exchanges and to house lifesaving defibrillator equipment.

Katherine Bradley, commercial and operations manager for BT Payphones, said: “Congratulations to the people of Kingsbridge for coming up with such an unusual and clever idea. The 5,000th adoption is a perfect example of the sort of creativity shown by communities wanting to find a new lease of life for many traditional red phone boxes.

“The Adopt a Kiosk programme has proved to be a huge success. With use of pay-phones declining by more than 90 per cent in the last decade, many phone boxes are no longer needed as working pay-phones.

“But villages and towns across the country have been keen to keep them because the red kiosks are often an integral part of the local community.

“Rather than leave the phone boxes empty, they have come up with a huge variety of uses, ranging from mini libraries and mini art galleries to tourist information centres and grocery shops - or the boxes have been equipped with the latest lifesaving heart defibrillator equipment.”

The ‘Adopt a Kiosk’ programme was introduced in 2008 for communities wanting to keep a traditional red phone box which is no longer needed as a payphone. To comply with legal requirements, the local authority or other organisation taking ownership needs to buy the box from BT for £1. Further details are available at www.bt.com/adopt.