A SIX year plan costing £10 million comes to fruition when Burnley's telephone system goes totally digital next Wednesday morning (May 29).

The switch on will bring the last of the area's six telephone exchanges up to date, replacing existing electronic equipment. Almost 80,000 lines have already been upgraded.

The change will benefit the remaining 8,000 customers whose five digit telephone numbers begin with a '3'.

From Wednesday the numbers will all have the prefix '4', bringing them in line with other Burnley numbers.

The digital connection means customers in the Burnley area will also now be able to have itemised bills and use the 1471 number to find the number of the last caller.

BT's Chris Gregory said: "To help the changeover go as smoothly as possible, I would ask customers to take care when dialling after the 29th because of the extra digit which may need to be dialled for some Burnley numbers."

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