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City Beach Telephone Exchange
The City Beach Telephone Exchange was a key piece of telecommunications infrastructure that supported suburbs such as City Beach, Floreat and Wembley Downs for decades. Built in 1955, it occupied a 1,495m² site, with the exchange building itself covering approximately 427m². Single storey with a basement, it was a common configuration for telephone exchanges, providing space in the basement for switching equipment, power systems and cabling.
The City Beach Telephone Exchange formed part of Australia’s national telecommunications system and would originally have operated under the PMG, later Telecom Australia, and ultimately Telstra as the network evolved and was corporatized.
On 26 March 2018, the site was sold to the Town of Cambridge for $1.65 million, with the building itself continued to be leased to Telstra for a period of time. Following the expiry of the lease agreement, Telstra vacated the building and responsibility for the site reverted to the Town. Since then, the exchange building has remained disused, pending demolition.
The role of telephone exchanges
Before mobile phones and internet calling, every phone call relied on a telephone exchange. Buildings like the former City Beach Telephone Exchange worked around the clock to keep suburbs connected. Every landline in the surrounding area was physically wired back to the exchange. When someone picked up the phone and dialled a number, the signal first travelled through underground cables to the exchange.
Inside the exchange, equipment determined where that call needed to go. If it was a local call, the exchange connected it directly to another line in the same area. If it was a call to another suburb, city or state, the exchange passed it on through a wider network of exchanges. Being more than switchboards, they were complex technical facilities that operated continuously and contained:
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switching equipment that routed calls
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large banks of batteries to keep the system running during power outages
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power supply and backup systems
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cooling and ventilation equipment to protect sensitive hardware
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cable frames where thousands of individual phone lines were connected and managed
Because exchanges needed to be reliable at all times, they were designed to be secure, solid and mostly windowless.
Building exchanges in the suburbs
Telephone exchanges had to be located close to the customers they served. The longer the copper cable ran, the weaker the signal.
As suburbs expanded, exchanges were upgraded, enlarged or supplemented by additional facilities. In some cases, areas were later reassigned to different exchanges as technology improved.
How technology changed everything
Exchanges originally relied on electromechanical switching systems that physically moved parts to connect calls. These systems were later replaced with digital switching, which was faster, quieter and took up far less space.
Over time, telecommunications technology changed dramatically. Mechanical and early digital switching equipment was replaced with more compact systems and much of the network was consolidated into fewer, larger facilities. As mobile phones, fibre networks and remote switching became standard, many suburban exchanges were no longer required.
Once an exchange was no longer needed, the building didn’t really have any alternative use, as they were designed for specialised equipment with heavy floors and minimal natural light and therefore, were difficult to adapt for other purposes. As a result, many were sold, repurposed or demolished as networks began to modernise.
Exchange, not a substation
Despite sometimes being described as a substation, the City Beach building was a telephone exchange and not a telephone substation.
An exchange is where calls are switched and managed. A substation is a smaller facility used to distribute and boost signals locally.
Decline and redundancy
Alongside the unused structure, the site also included a large retaining wall that had deteriorated over time. Maintaining both the building and the wall represented an ongoing cost with no practical benefit. The decision to demolish the City Beach Telephone Exchange was ultimately a practical one.
With no ongoing telecommunications function, no alternative use identified, and growing maintenance issues, the Town opted to demolish the building and the retaining wall, addressing safety and maintenance concerns at the same time.
Hilton Telephone Exchange
The Hilton Telephone Exchange is a local telecommunications facility in the suburb of Hilton, in the Fremantle area of Perth, Western Australia. An exchange is a building or site where telephone lines and network equipment are housed so that phone calls and data connections can be switched and routed across the wider network.
Telephone exchanges like the one in Hilton were an essential part of the fixed-line phone network throughout the 20th century and into the early 21st century. They provided the technical infrastructure needed to connect local homes and businesses to each other and to the broader telecommunications system.
The Hilton Telephone Exchange is listed in network directories simply as Hilton Exchange and is located on Chamberlain Street in the Coolbellup area, close to Hilton and O’Connor.
These exchanges originally dated back to the era when telephone networks used copper lines and local switching equipment to manage calls. Even as digital technology and fibre broadband have been introduced, many local exchanges remain part of the infrastructure that supports landline phone services and internet connections in their surrounding areas.
Unlike some exchange buildings that have been decommissioned or demolished in other suburbs, the Hilton Exchange remains operational.
Manning Telephone Exchange
The Manning Telephone Exchange, once located at 54 Manning Road in Manning, occupied a large site dedicated to telecommunications. Prior to this, the land had also been used for broadcasting and technical training, before coming under redevelopment pressure and ultimately being demolished.
Early use of the site
Before the telephone exchange was established, the site was already being used for communications infrastructure. Between 1946 and 1953, the 6WN ABC transmitter was relocated from the Mount Lawley Golf Course to this Manning site.
By the late 1960s, the site had become a major telecommunications hub. In 1968, the Manning Training Centre was constructed immediately east of the telephone exchange. This facility formed part of a network of technician training centres operated by the national telecommunications authority, alongside sites in East Perth and Redcliffe.
In January 1969, the first intake of 119 Technicians in Training began their studies at Manning. These trainees were taught the skills needed to install, maintain and operate Australia’s rapidly expanding telecommunications network.
The importance of the site was reinforced in June 1972, when $412,000 was allocated for extensions to the training centre as part of a $271 million national communications upgrade during the 1971–72 financial year.
Closure and demolition of the training facilities
The training centre continued operating for several more decades before closing in 2002. The following year, in 2003, the training centre buildings were demolished, along with a smaller structure and a shed. The telephone exchange remained, continuing to function independently of the training facilities.
Changing ownership
The exchange site occupied a 14,149m² block of land, zoned Public Purposes (Telstra) Reserve. On 31 May 2001, Telstra Corporation Ltd sold the site to Carcione Nominees Pty Ltd for $2,310,000.
The site was subsequently transferred on 10 April 2003 to Manning Land Pty Ltd for $25,000, a figure consistent with a nominal or internal transfer rather than an open market sale. Ownership thereafter sat with Manning Land Pty Ltd, a company that appears to have functioned as a special purpose vehicle for the property, with Carcione Nominees Pty Ltd remaining associated with the landholding over time.
Development applications and rezoning attempts
From the early 2000s onward, the Manning Telephone Exchange site became the subject of repeated attempts to change its zoning and redevelopment potential. Its size, location and former public purpose reservation made it an attractive but difficult site.
In October 2003, Carcione Nominees Pty Ltd lodged a development application for a neighbourhood shopping centre of approximately 4,500 square metres. This proposal was refused by the City of South Perth in February 2004, largely due to concerns about its impact on nearby shopping centres, in particularly Waterford Plaza and the Welwyn Avenue local centre. An appeal was lodged with the former Tribunal but was later withdrawn.
Around the same period, rezoning applications were pursued in both February 2004 and February 2006, seeking to amend the site’s zoning from Public Purposes (Telstra) to a mix of Residential (R30 and R80 density codes) and Highway Commercial (R80). If approved, these proposals could have enabled two, three and four storey residential buildings across part of the site, delivering up to 100 dwellings, along with limited commercial uses.
The 2004 rezoning proposal was reportedly supported by Council in principle but was withdrawn before reaching finality. A revised version, presented as Amendment No. 7 in 2006, was ultimately rejected. An appeal to the State Administrative Tribunal was lodged but again appears to have been withdrawn before determination.
Ministerial intervention and stalled amendments
In May 2005, the Minister for Planning instructed Council to modify and re-advertise one of the earlier scheme amendments to allow a mixed commercial and residential outcome, including a supermarket, shops, offices, restaurants and up to 91 dwellings, with increased building height limits. Council’s legal advice was that this constituted an entirely new scheme amendment. The Minister later withdrew the instruction in October 2005 and the amendment didn’t proceed.
By July 2004, Council had already resolved that it would support no higher than R40 density, reinforcing the tension between the scale sought by the owners and what Council considered appropriate for the locality.
2012 high density proposal
In August and September 2012, a significantly more ambitious proposal was presented through Amendment No. 34, prepared by Masterplan Consultants WA on behalf of Carcione Nominees Pty Ltd. This proposal sought to rezone the entire site to Residential and Highway Commercial with a density coding of R160 and a plot ratio of 2.0, potentially accommodating around 300 dwellings.
Building heights of up to 36 metres were proposed in the centre of the site, stepping down toward Ley Street and Manning Road. The scheme also introduced detailed design requirements relating to sustainability, street activation, building articulation, communal open space and civic art.
At the September 2012 Council meeting, the proposal was refused, with Council resolving that the bulk and scale were not in keeping with the surrounding area. While Council invited a revised proposal of a more modest scale, no further scheme amendment was progressed.
Temporary use of the site
Although long term redevelopment stalled, the site continued to be used on a temporary basis. Development approval had previously been granted in 2007 for temporary storage, which expired in 2009.
In December 2018, an application was lodged for temporary facilities, including offices, ablutions, storage and parking. This was associated with major infrastructure works, including the Smart Freeways Kwinana Northbound project, which required the site as a work and storage compound between July 2019 and April 2020.
During assessment, complaints were received regarding night time truck movements and noise. Following a compliance investigation, the temporary use ceased, with the City advising that further activity would require formal approval.
Demolition
In 2021, trees began to be cleared on the site and in the following year, a demolition permit was approved.
In August 2022 on a Saturday night, a man attended the exchange (owner of the white car photographed below) and proceeded to grind and remove copper from the rear of the building over the next hour. The incident, which began just before midnight, strangely didn’t attract the attention of nearby residents.
In October 2022, the Manning Telephone Exchange was demolished.
As of 2023, the former Manning Telephone Exchange site at 54 Manning Road has no active development applications with the City of South Perth. While the land has been intermittently used for storage, it currently sits vacant, with its long and complex planning history unresolved.
August 2022
October 2022
