Clearer Government policy on siting of mobile masts

Before the General Election was called, the Government announced a number of changes to planning legislation surrounding the siting of mobile telecommunications masts.

Public interest in mobile masts has been high in recent months, following the publication of the Stewart report on mobile phones and health in April 2000 and the subsequent Department for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR) Consultation, Telecommunication Mast Development, in July 2000.

On 16 March the Government confirmed a series of important modifications to the planning system on the siting of mobile masts in response to the findings of the DETR consultation.

The Government decided the following measures:

• to strengthen public consultation requirements for masts below 15m in height, bringing them into line with planning permission;
• to increase the prior approval application procedure to 56 days;
• to specify that school governors must be consulted on all proposals for new masts on or near schools or colleges;
• to increase fees to allow for full public consultation; and
• to maintain in full an authority’s current ability to reject application on amenity grounds.

While the environmental, planning and health issues surrounding mobile masts fall outside of Oftel’s scope of work, Oftel takes an active interest in the development of Government policy in these areas.

More specifically, Oftel is responsible for encouraging mobile operators to share mobile masts wherever possible (see below), although this is not always practical, for example because of space limitations, or for aesthetic reasons.

As part of its response to the DETR consultation on the future development of mobile masts, the industry undertook a commitment to improve dialogue with local communities through better communication, industry process and consultation. This included a pledge to improve cross-industry processes and discussion regarding mobile mast site sharing.

Oftel is currently monitoring the development of these discussions, and is investigating with the industry the possibility of making data on shared mobile mast sites publicly available.

For further information, please contact Chris Handley (tel: 020 7634 8863 / e-mail chris.handley@oftel.gov.uk).

Other information

The full details of the findings of the DETR Consultation can be found at www.detr.gov.uk

The Stewart Report on mobile phones and health is available at www.iegmp.org.uk) Further information on health issues can be found from the Department of Health’s (DoH) website at www.doh.gov.uk or the National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB) website at www.nrpb.org.uk).