News / St Pauls
Telephone box given new lease of life
A St. Paul’s telephone box has been given a new lease of life as a community Defibrillator and Bleed Kit Station.
The Grade II King George telephone box in Portland Square, has been refurbished and upcycled in a process that took two years.
Located in the newly renovated King George Telephone Box outside of St. Paul’s Church, the new emergency care station contains a defibrillator and a bleed kit, generously donated by Great Western Air Ambulance Charity and Bin the Blade CIC respectively.
is needed now More than ever
The nearest kit to the one on Portland Square can be found on Bond Street.
Members of the St. Paul’s and wider Bristol community have worked together to give the previously derelict telephone box a new lease of life.
Acquired by Circomedia from BT in 2024 for £1, the telephone box has since been cleaned and painted by student volunteers from the City of Bristol College and the King’s Trust; received new glass panels; had metal work refabricated; and received the professional electrical install required to charge the defibrillator.
All-in-all the lifesaving project cost more than £5,000 and couldn’t have been made possible without the community.
Dan Broadbent, the project lead from Circomedia, said when they went for it, he soon realised he had “bitten off a bit more than he could chew.”
The telephone box which was built in the early 20th century is graded, so there is a limited number of adjustments that can be made during the refurbishment process.
The box provides essential life saving materials inside it in case someone has a heart attack, or there is a stabbing or a potential fatality.
It’s got tools like a tourniquet, a gauze that can be inserted into a wound.
The inside has instructions for the equipment but Circomedia has also been trained to deliver this care through CIC Bin the Blade.
They also provide training at education centres, businesses and community centres.
Dan adds that “It was mostly mothers and families that were going on to do the training.”
BT will pledge seven years of electrical support to keep the defibrillator at an ambient temperature.
Already the defibrillator has been used three times in the first month.
Dan says the idea came about during St. Paul’s Carnival about two years ago, he explains: “There was a child brought into the foyer area of Circomedia and just dropped on my lap and the parents said he was having a heart attack.
“It turned out the child was having a seizure. But we had to send someone out to go and get a defibrillator, and it took them up about 20 minutes to get back.
“If it was a heart attack, it would have been far too long. So we thought it was really important to try and get one nearby so that was the start of the project.”
The box has already been used three times.
They’ve also got a guardian, which is Leanne Reynolds from Bin the Blade, and she looks after it and she comes back and checks that it’s not been damaged.
Leanne has campaigned for knife crime prevention since 2021 with Bin the Blade, it’s all community led and community funded.
They’ve got community knife surrender bins around in conjunction with the police.
And then they have now brought in the Daniel Baird Foundation bleed kits into the city.
Regarding the bleed kits she says: “We don’t want them. We’re at the stage where they are there, they’ve been used twice in the city to save lives.
“But the aim is to have preventative work so that we don’t need to be using emergency kit, while we’re waiting for an ambulance.
“You can’t wait on an ambulance to turn up something like that’s happened. It’s critical, you know?
“We’re not seeing the numbers going down. We’re seeing more and more reports of young people actually carrying and being in possession of weapons, which is worrying.”
The phone box is directly opposite Circomedia, with all staff trained to use the equipment
Almost all of the resources required have been generously donated by local businesses and tradespeople including Askew Architects, Bin The Blade CIC (donated Bleed Kit and Guardian), Bristol Design Forge (fabrication and signage), Bristol Sparky (Electrical Install), Circomedia (project lead), City of Bristol College & The Prince’s Trust Students (painting and decorating), councillor Tim Wye (planning and council support) Olly Hallett (metal Fabrication, Roman Glass (glass replacement) and Trimite.
The launch event coincided with Circomedia’s free Community Open Doors event.
In the event that you need to find a bleed kit, you can search on: bleedmap.co.uk.
If you need to find a defibrillator you can search on Defibfinder.
All photos: Hannah Massoudi
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