London, Sep 11 (DPA) British Prime Minister Tony Blair may have to rent or borrow temporary accommodation if he should - as promised - leave Downing Street within the next year.

According to the Times Monday, Blair's Georgian townhouse in Connaught Square, in the city's posh Mayfair district, is leased to a film director until 2008.

The house, which cost Blair a staggering 3.6 million pounds ($6.8 million) when he bought it in 2004, is currently inhabited by film director Michael Caton-Jones at a rent of 2,000 pounds a week.

The mortgage repayments amount to 14,000 pounds a month.

The Times said the uncertainty over the family's living arrangements was one of the reasons that Cherie Blair, the prime minister's wife, is opposed to an early departure from Downing Street, where the Blairs have a large flat at No 11, next door to the government offices.

Blair's wife was concerned about the upheaval of a move for their son Leo, 6, although their older children, Euan, Nicky and Katherine, are all at university.

The leasing of the house for such a long period was yet another sign the prime minister had not been planning a swift departure, said the Times.

Should the prime minister move out in the early summer next year, the family will have to find suitable premises in central London that meet the approval of the police protection officers who will be by his side for the rest of his life.