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5/12/25 4:43 pm
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Thousands of defunct telephone exchanges around the UK could become residential blocks as BT gives up the leases over the next few years.
BT sold its 6,000 telephone exchanges and other real estate in 2001 for £2.3 billion to Telereal Trillium in a 30-year sale-leaseback deal. As the agreements are now coming up to renewal, BT is keen to exit the sites before its landlord raises the rent, reports Data Center Dynamics.
The firm is set to consolidate its footprint down from some 5,600 network buildings to about 1,000 during the next decade; 105 are due to close between 2028 and 2031, with the rest closing in the early 2030s. Kenton Road in London (pictured) will be one of the first to shut its doors later this year.
Telephone exchanges traditionally connected homes with copper wires but are becoming obsolete as many people no longer use their landline - and the technology increasingly uses digital technology to carry calls over broadband networks.
Many of these telephone exchanges are in inner-city metropolitan areas, with a number of the 105 set to close by 2031 in prime central London locations which makes them very valuable for residential or hotel use. Few exchanges have any kind of listed or protected status.
Telereal Trillium has sold or redeveloped several exited BT sites over the years, with most being turned into residential properties. It previously sold a former BT call centre in Lancashire to CBRE, as well as former BT offices in Southampton and Swindon to an investment consortium and a property development firm, respectively.
In 2002, BT sold a former exchange in central Nottingham to a developer looking to turn the site into flats, while earlier this year, Telereal Trillium filed to redevelop a former single-story BT data centre in Glasgow, into a multi-story residential-led mixed-use development set to house more than 1,000 rooms.
Photo: Google Street View.
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