PEOPLE living in Swindon will soon have to tap in all 11 digits to ring anyone else living in the town – even their next door neighbour.

As the town continues to grow at a rapid pace, Ofcom has warned that they are running out of new telephone numbers to dish out and, as a result, have had to come up with a solution.

As soon as 2016, people living in Swindon will have to dial 01793 for every single call to other people living in the town. This will allow communication providers to start allocating new landline numbers starting with 0 or 1, which are currently unavailable.

The cost of calls will not be affected by dialling the code.

A spokesman for Ofcom said: “Ofcom is working with communications providers, the local council, local consumer and business groups and charities to inform the community well in advance of the need to dial the code.

“In a small number of areas of the UK, where phone numbers are becoming scarce, people will need to dial the whole number when making local calls.

“This measure will enable Ofcom to make more numbers available. Ofcom’s consumer research shows this to be the least disruptive option for making new phone numbers available for homes and businesses.”

People living in Bournemouth, Poole and Christchurch will have to start using the full 11 digit code from November 1 this year.

Ofcom is also proposing to launch a pilot scheme to charge communication providers 10p per phone number per year in 30 areas with the fewest number blocks remaining available for allocation to encourage their efficient use – including Swindon.

The aim of this is to encourage communications providers to consider their plans carefully before applying for new bulk allocations of phone numbers and to encourage the return of unused numbers to Ofcom.

This should help to delay the need for measures to increase the supply of numbers in some areas.

The majority of European countries, including France and Spain, already charge communications providers for phone numbers.