Paxman hits out at sale of landmark BBC centre

Newsnight presenter Jeremy Paxman has criticised the BBC’s decision to sell Television Centre and move some staff to central London during a period of budget cuts.

Paxman, 61, compared the broadcaster – which has announced plans to vacate the landmark doughnut-shaped Television Centre in west London by 2015 – to the British Empire before decolonisation.

He told the Radio Times: “They always said that the way you know if the British are going to decolonise is when they start building massive government buildings – that was certainly the case in India.

“And the BBC’s much the same. What organisation – at a time when it has no money, allegedly – would move from cheap square footage in west London to Oxford Circus?”

The BBC announced in 2007 its intention to sell the 1960 Shepherd’s Bush building.