Fears an "iconic" Marlow sight could be under threat turned out to be a "red herring" this week, but not before the mayor vowed to chain herself to the landmark in question.

Wycombe District Council wrongly advertised plans a new telephone box on Marlow High Street - sparking fears the traditional red boxes would be removed.

Mayor Suzanne Brown leapt to the defence, saying she fought several years ago to save the red phone boxes and would do it again.

But WDC confirmed an "administrative error" led to an application from 22 years ago being wrongly dated as 2015, with Marlow’s kiosks appearing safe for now.

Cllr Brown has vowed to protect the High Street from modern steel and glass structures in future.

She said: "It turns out it was a bit of a red herring. I’m more than a tad relieved, I know the Marlow Society were worried too.

"But if anything happens in future I’ll chain myself to them if necessary.

"Marlow is a historic town and we do not want modern telephone boxes in the High Street. With any old town, you see the red post boxes and the iconic red telephone boxes.

"We’re lucky enough to have a gold post box and we don’t want our history to go, otherwise we’ll end up looking like any other modern town."

WDC said while preparing for a departmental move, the archive document from 1993 was wrongly labelled as 2015 and appeared on the council’s newest planning lists.

The 22-year-old proposal was thrown out by the council at the time.

Spokesman Nick Sykes said: "I can confirm that this listing was an administrative error.

"It had been scanned and dated as 2015 in error, so appeared as a new ‘notification’ on Public Access.

"The error will be rectified shortly. I can confirm that we have no live notification regarding phone boxes in Marlow."