Phone masts as tall as Nelson’s Column will be allowed under new guidelines to speed up 5G rollout
Mobile phone masts as tall as Nelson’s Column will be allowed without full planning permission, as the government last night ripped up guidelines in an effort to speed up the UK rollout of 5G and eliminate connectivity “not spots”.
MPs yesterday scrapped rules requiring phone masts higher than 25 metres, or 20 metres in national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty, to receive full planning permission, as Britain faces pressure to fast-track its 5G deployment.
A new height limit for phone masts has not yet been set, but firms have told MPs that they want to be able to build masts at around the 50 metre mark. London’s iconic Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square is 52 metres tall.
Ministers said new base stations and alterations to existing phone masts will also be allowed without council approval, in a bid to boost rural mobile signals, as Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s speeds up plans to meet the UK’s 2025 connectivity targets.
Taller masts will also be allowed to be put up closer to roads, in a bid to wipe out signal outages, ministers said yesterday.
It comes as 5G phone masts became the subject of conspiracist attacks during the pandemic.
Conspiracy theories have proliferated on social media during the pandemic, claiming that 5G mobile masts are to blame for the spread of coronavirus. During the course of the UK’s four-month lockdown, more than 60 mobile phone masts were damaged, including 30 arson and petrol bomb attacks.
Openreach, which maintains the bulk of the UK’s broadband infrastructure, said employees had suffered 46 incidents of abuse in April alone, with staff spat at and had water thrown over them.
The fresh plans have also alarmed conservationists, who warned that phone masts double current heights could tarnish Britain’s countryside if they are put up without proper council oversight.
The government last autumn opened a consultation into proposed plans to increase phone mast heights following backlash from backbenchers who warned they would create “eyesores” in historic towns and villages.
Seventy per cent of local authorities that responded to the consultation said this “could result in significant adverse individual and cumulative landscape and visual impacts”.
However, MPs yesterday published their response to the consultation, concluding: “We are satisfied that there is evidence that the proposed reforms would have a positive impact on the government’s ambitions for the deployment of 5G and extending mobile coverage.”
Matt Warman, minister for digital infrastructure, said: “We’re investing billions so no part of the UK is left behind by the opportunities and economic benefits that faster, more reliable and more secure digital connectivity brings.”
“These changes will help target public funding in hard to reach areas most in need of better broadband. It will also help mobile companies banish rural not-spots by upgrading and sharing their masts.”
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