THOUSANDS of British Telecom customers in South Cheshire are being asked to stump up £10 a time for a phone directory they have always got free.

Bemused councillor Rod Fletcher claims Alsager residents are being ripped off.

Cllr Fletcher, who represents Alsager on the town and borough councils, is bidding to get British Telecom (BT) to hand out local phone directories to residents for free, instead of charging them £10 each.

Alsager has a population of approximately 12,000 people. If everybody had to pay for the book, which has vital numbers for Leighton Hospital and Congleton Borough Council services, it would cost around £120,000.

Cllr Fletcher said: 'This is absolutely unbelievable. We have always received both the Stoke-on-Trent and South Cheshire phone books, because we are on that border.

'But this time we didn't get the South Cheshire one. I live in Cheshire! I enquired with BT why that was, and was told they send out directories according to postcodes.

'Why doesn't a phone company work according to phone numbers?'

BT spokesman Paul Dorrell said moves are being made to remedy the problem.

He said: 'In January 2003, BT issued the first of its phone books which include a classified A-Z of businesses and residential numbers.

'At that time it was decided that the books would be released every 12 months instead of the previous 18 and that customers would also get the book for the area which their postcode applied to.

'We are trying to integrate our system to more accurately dispatch the most applicable phone book to each area. That could take 12 months, but will hopefully be in place in time for the next directory delivered to Alsager residents.'