CPRE concerned about rural broadband plans

CPREsaid clause 8 of the Growth and Infrastructure Bill currently before the Lords is “unnecessary and that new telegraph poles in National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty should continue to require planning permission, which would not pose a barrier to broadband infrastructure roll-out”.

The Government has said it will examine the clause again and has proposed an amendment that would mean primary legislation governing National Parks and AONBs will remain unchanged.

But after initial legal advice CPREsaid the amendment does not go far enough to ensure protections are maintained at their current level.

It continues to allow for the introduction of proposed new regulations which will make it much easier for telecommunications companies to put up overhead wires and poles in protected areas without applying for planning permission.

“The initial view of CPRE’s legal advisers about what the amendment does is explicitly to replace that special protection with the general protection given to all countryside areas under the Communications Act 2003,” a spokesman said.

“If the Secretary of State has ‘had regard to’ the matters mentioned in the Act then that will be sufficient for the purposes of the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949. In other words the special treatment and priority given to national parks would be lost; they would be treated in future like any other area of countryside.”

CPREsaid that peers should question whether the amendment means that countryside in National Parks and AONBs is no longer recognised as special for the purposes of installing communication infrastructure.

They also question how the Culture Secretary will balance the duty ‘to promote economic growth’ under the Communications Act 2003 with the ‘need to protect the environment and, in particular, conserve the natural beauty and amenity of the countryside’, when drawing up regulations to govern broadband providers.

CPREsaid the Government has provided no evidence that the planning system presents a barrier to broadband roll-out and questioned regulations to remove the need for communications infrastructure providers in protected areas to apply for planning permission.