The Development of Telecoms - Scotland West Region

The Scotland West area covers the west of Scotland from Dumfriesshire in the south, with the romantic Gretna Green just inside the Scottish border, to Mallaig in the north. It includes the North and South Uist in the Outer Hebrides and the islands off the west coast both south and west of Skye.

The area is spread over approximately 10,400 square miles of territory, almost as large as the Home Counties Region, but not so compact. The variety of type of community is infinite, ranging from the rich agricultural and grazing areas of the south through the industrial areas of the Clyde-Forth valley to the remote farms and crofts of the Western Highlands and Islands. It encircles, but does not include Glasgow and stretches each side of the Firth of Clyde, which is the delight of yachtsmen and the scene of many trial trips of great liners and ships.

High mountain ranges and the sea lochs comply, indenting the coastline combine to give the area some of the most magnificent scenery in the British Isles, which attracts a considerable amount of tourist and holiday traffic. Indeed the Iochs are the principal hydrographic feature of Scotland as a whole, both on the mainland and in many of the islands. The largest in Scotland and in Great Britain is Loch Lomond (24 miles long).

Road and rail communications, because of the lochs and high mountain ranges are difficult and few, less so for telephone development, but the nature of the terrain presents constant and exciting challenge.

The area headquarters are in Glasgow, about seven miles at the nearest point from the area controlled and it was the first of those few areas whose headquarters are situated in another telephone area.

There are 70,783 exchange connections in the area and 368 exchanges of which 276 are automatic. The total staff (excluding telephonists) is 1,630 and the annual revenue is £2,000,000.