Our property portfolio

At 31 March 2008, we occupied approximately 7,000 properties in the UK and approximately 400 properties in the rest of the world. The majority of these UK properties are owned by – and leased from – the Telereal Group, which is part of the William Pears Group. These properties mainly house exchange equipment and are needed as part of our continuing activities. Other general purpose properties consist chiefly of offices, depots and computer centres.
     We anticipate that the deployment of innovative technology which makes possible the consolidation of exchange equipment along with changes to our working patterns, will continue to reduce the size of our property portfolio and the amount we invest in it.