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Buying land from BT Openreach

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Hi there,
Our back garden backs onto a BT Openreach Exchange which has a large carpark and green area.  As with many people we have big parking issues.  We would love to purchase a piece of the BT land to create a driveway at the back of our garden. We have tried to find a suitable BT Openreach contact number or email to ask about this and have failed.  We did see online that they are planning over the coming years to close 4600 of their exchanges, so perhaps this could go in our favour.  I assume over these coming years developers will buy many of the exchanges to make into flats and homes etc.  The way the BT drive is designed, it is possible to move a gate so the exchange would still be secure for them, as I imagine this would be one of the main issues.  Buying some of the land would still leave a big car park and green area, but we would still have to go over a strip of their land to get to our newly created driveway, so I assume this could be a problem?  Basically I would like to know if anyone has any experience of doing this kind of thing? buying land from BT? or gaining rights to drive over their land? also, how do I find the correct person to contact? It seems crazy that every person I have spoken to at BT Openreach can't help point me in the right direction of who to talk to.  Any help or advice would be gratefully received.

Comments

  • macman
    macman Posts: 53,098 Forumite
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    edited 13 April 2023 at 10:15AM
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    Matt Davies is the Chief Finance Officer. I'd write or email him as a starting point, but there is no email address given.
    But if they are really selling off that much property, it'll be handled through a number of agents, they wouldn't be dealing with it in house.
    They may not even own the site, it may be leased.
    No free lunch, and no free laptop ;)
  • user1977
    user1977 Posts: 14,555 Forumite
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    macman said:

    They may not even own the site, it may be leased.
    The exchange will almost certainly be owned as a permanent bit of infrastructure, though admittedly that doesn't mean the car park will be.

    OP, have you got as far as the property helpdesk listed on this page?

    https://www.bt.com/about/contact-bt
  • newsgroupmonkey_
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    This guy looks like the top of the property ladder

  • GDB2222
    GDB2222 Posts: 24,953 Forumite
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    If I had a large site, ripe for development, would I sell bits off piecemeal? Well, just possibly, but I would want a mega price. 


    No reliance should be placed on the above! Absolutely none, do you hear?
  • Section62
    Section62 Posts: 7,968 Forumite
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    AE_M said:

    We did see online that they are planning over the coming years to close 4600 of their exchanges, so perhaps this could go in our favour.  I assume over these coming years developers will buy many of the exchanges to make into flats and homes etc.

    The flip side of that is that some sites will potentially need expanding to provide capacity elsewhere for the smaller exchanges being closed.

    If the one next to you has a car park it sounds like it could be one of the larger ones?
  • Eldi_Dos
    Eldi_Dos Posts: 1,706 Forumite
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    edited 13 April 2023 at 6:27PM
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    As long as the exchange is operational, land will be allocated for use of emergency generators or mobile exchange in case the existing exchange is damaged in some way.
  • LouLou2024
    LouLou2024 Posts: 1 Newbie
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    Good morning, did you manage to find a contact for BT that deals with land sales? Thanks.
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