This article was written by Sean McHenry, Head of town planning at Cornerstone and was originally posted in the RICS Land Journal and can be found here.

Since the Electronic Communications Code was reformed in 2017, town planning has become still more significant in the expansion of telecommunications infrastructure, with planning consent now central to acquiring sites and meeting the code's public benefit test. Yet at the same time, the resources of planning departments – and of councils more broadly – have been increasingly constrained.

The UK and Scottish governments and the Royal Town Planning Institute have acknowledged the dearth of public-sector planning resources. Many local planning authorities are ill equipped to manage a deluge of applications from across industry, which affects the progress of critical developments such as housing and infrastructure as well as telecoms.

Moreover, public-sector bodies that are statutory consultees on planning consultations, such as Natural England, NatureScot, Natural Resources Wales and the Northern Ireland Environment Agency, face similar resource issues, resulting in prolonged applications.

New infrastructure faces planning and technical challenges

The shortage of planning resources has stalled the nationwide rollout of fifth-generation (5G) telecoms services and the adoption of connected smart devices, the so-called internet of things (IoT). Both of these are critical for various sectors, and the delay is thus detrimental to the UK economy.

Alongside these planning problems, digital infrastructure is becoming more challenging to install in technical terms, necessitating greater collaboration between industry, stakeholders and decision-makers, such as parish councils, landowners and site providers, as well as council digital champions and planning departments.

For example, 5G uses a much higher frequency than all preceding networks to provide the high-capacity, high-speed and low-latency service that many IoT applications need. Low latency means it takes mere milliseconds for the network to respond to a click: while this is not crucial for reading an email, if in future a 5G network controls driverless cars, drones or factory machinery, those milliseconds become crucial.

However, 5G's higher frequencies mean coverage from a base station is much less extensive than in previous generations, and the signal is easily disrupted by trees or buildings. It also creates challenges in terms of meeting necessary safety guidelines – challenges that we must design out through careful site selection or taller base stations.

This all means that more infrastructure is needed to meet capacity demand. Such infrastructure must be in the area where the service will be used; that is, in our urban and suburban areas. Small cells – very small antennae that are often attached to lamp-posts – can help resolve these issues as they provide localised coverage, and certainly have their part to play. However, they are a supplement to a large-scale infrastructure network rather than an alternative to it.

Industry encouraged to engage with local authorities

Given these technical challenges, it is increasingly important for telecoms developers and local authorities to collaborate. Yet the resource shortage in planning departments not only delays determination of applications but also compromises the quality of the pre-application feedback that they provide.

Although the government has been advocating for pre-application engagement, as outlined in codes of practice, there are various challenges, and local planning authorities often struggle to provide the service effectively. This results in increased numbers of applications being refused and subsequent planning appeals, putting more pressure on planning officers.

To mitigate these challenges, we at digital services company Cornerstone are looking at how to enhance collaboration with local planning authorities through strategic engagement and collaboration, including planning performance agreements (PPAs). By formalising engagement between infrastructure providers and authorities, such agreements aim to ensure that pre-application discussions are more substantive, enabling more viable proposals.

The main purpose of a PPA is to provide a framework, agreed between the local planning authority and the applicant or potential applicant, about the process for considering a major development proposal. A volume of telecoms applications could be grouped together under a single PPA, so applicant and authority could discuss how best to provide the various sites coming forward. They could look at siting and design options, attend site visits, talk about the technical requirements and request appropriate additional reports.

Accelerating this process is essential for ensuring the connectivity necessary to fulfil national, regional and local aspirations. Notably, the PPA framework also ensures that local authorities are duly compensated for committing their planning resources to pre-application engagement and applications.

Beyond formal PPAs, Cornerstone values dedicated digital champions in councils. These individuals are key to collaboration between different council departments, which are often siloed, and aligning stakeholders to expedite connectivity projects.

However, challenges in telecoms development go beyond local governance, given differences in planning policies, legislation and guidance between regions. This necessitates a coordinated approach at both central and devolved government levels – and an understanding of how each of the UK nations handles telecoms planning applications.

Northern Ireland guidance lags behind rest of UK

The situation for telecoms development is particularly difficult in Northern Ireland, where antiquated planning regulations and guidance impede timely decision-making. This underscores the need for legislative updates to bring the planning regime in line with broader UK standards.

The province is the only part of the UK without a prior approval system. In England, Scotland, and Wales proposals under defined dimensions for each nation must be determined in a statutory 56-day period, but the same proposal in Northern Ireland could often take more than 12 months.

It is therefore imperative that the Northern Ireland executive and its Department for Infrastructure (DfI) urgently look at updating the permitted development legislation to bring it more closely in line with the rest of the UK.

With the return of devolved government, and given that the Department for the Economy and the DfI are being led by the same party, perhaps there is a fresh opportunity for cross-departmental collaboration to deal with challenges and advance the Northern Ireland Mobile Action Plan or to explore new ways to make the necessary reforms. In January industry met with the relevant ministers to discuss connectivity.

Although the executive published a strategic policy planning statement (SPPS) in 2015, this merely consolidated previous planning policy guides (PPGs) instead of updating them. Like the guidance note, the statement is also outdated, making it difficult for officers to give appropriate weight to the benefits of telecoms installations and fulfil aspirations to provide connectivity across the province.

The DfI has been consulting on an SPPS update about wind farm development, and industry is calling for the telecoms section of the statement to go through a similar consultation as well. This is even more significant given that the province's 11 local authorities are all writing new local development plans – some of which have already been adopted – to guide development for the next 20 years. However, if the updated statement is aligned with national policy that is already outdated, it will simply create future challenges.

Site restrictions bely supportive regime in Scotland

In contrast to Northern Ireland, the Scottish regulatory landscape is relatively supportive. Nevertheless, with permitted development legislation for new ground-based sites and access tracks in designated areas more restrictive than in other parts of the UK, Scotland still presents challenges. This necessitates ongoing dialogue between industry stakeholders and policymakers to enable telecoms projects.

For example, a new base station in a national park in Scotland, up to a particular ground mast height, would need to go through the full planning process. By contrast, in England and Wales this would be classed as permitted development and go through the process with prior approval, which has a statutory 56-day determination process. The increased restriction north of the border has considerably affected Shared Rural Network timescales.

On a more positive note, National Planning Framework 4 has now been in place for more than 12 months, and is encouraging sustainable development that boosts the economy and equal access in rural areas across Scotland. The telecoms section of the framework is relatively supportive and – perhaps more significantly – the industry is noted as underpinning many policies for other development types.

Furthermore, the Scottish government replaced planning advice note 62 with planning guidance for telecoms infrastructure in December 2023. The new guidance is supportive, and establishes expectations for engagement between stakeholders as well as siting and design principles. It also provides a technical explanation that will help officers consider, rationalise and determine applications. This seems to have been well received by industry and local planning authorities alike.

Further reform needed to maintain Welsh progress

Wales stands out among the UK nations for its proactive updating of guidance and policies to support digital connectivity initiatives, albeit with some regulatory constraints that merit attention.

The national plan to 2040, Future Wales, supports telecoms development, while Planning Policy Wales is updated regularly and a new code of best practice was published in 2021.

Permitted development regulations were last updated in 2019, but are more restrictive than in Scotland and England in terms of what can be done to upgrade existing telecoms infrastructure. This has a huge effect on installing new technology, and limits the potential for operators to share infrastructure.

It would therefore benefit the industry and Wales as a nation if the Welsh government considered a further update to permitted development regulations to keep pace with the rest of the UK in terms of 5G provision. Industry met Welsh government officials in February to discuss permitted development reforms. This is especially pertinent because it is likely that huge investment is due to be provided across the UK telecoms sector over the coming years.

In December 2024, the UK's Competition and Markets Authority approved the merger of Vodafone and Three in the UK. The industry hopes that this merger will create more competition and investment to transform the telecoms landscape with an anticipated commitment to an £11bn investment programme and advanced new 5G network for the UK.  

This will considerably improve network quality for tens of millions of consumers and businesses across the country – having significant socio-economic benefit locally, regionally and nationally.

With this in mind, every UK nation should want to reform its regulatory framework to encourage efficient investment. However, perhaps more significantly, each of the nations should try to avoid making it more difficult to roll out that investment than in the others.

Yet this is currently the situation in Wales when it comes to permitted development rights for making upgrades. Such rights are particularly relevant given that the merger of Vodafone and Three is likely to see a significant increase in upgrades and sharing of infrastructure.

England could ease regulation to accelerate 5G rollout

The arrival of a Labour government has presented new opportunities for the sector, not least given the party's focus on economic growth and planning reform. Its manifesto stated that it would make a renewed push to fulfil the ambition of widespread 5G coverage in England by 2030.

In his speech at the Connected Britain Conference in September, minister for data protection and telecoms Sir Chris Bryant said that the 'government is keen to fix … the foundations of our society and our economy. And no foundations are more important than our digital telecoms infrastructure.'

This gave the clearest indication yet of the government's ambitions for digital connectivity. Cornerstone welcomes the minister's recognition of mobile infrastructure's importance, and the ambition to use 5G for better government, tackle digital exclusion and enable healthier, happier lives in more connected communities.

Most significantly, Sir Chris stated that the government is 'looking at how [it] can further reform planning regulations to remove barriers to infrastructure deployment' and 'will implement the remaining telecoms provisions of the Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Act 2022 as soon as possible' – both of which will be music to the sector's ears.

This comes alongside Labour's commitment to overhaul the planning system, seen in last summer's consultation on reforms to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF). The same consultation also included proposals to reform the nationally significant infrastructure projects (NSIPs) regime.

Industry can benefit from NPPF focus on economy

The government published the revised NPPF on 12 December, and there will be further reforms in a planning and infrastructure bill. The government has also confirmed it intends to introduce a universal system of strategic planning across England that will help meet its manifesto commitment for growth on a larger than local scale.

The telecoms industry has welcomed the announcement that government will allocate £100m extra funding this year for councils to review their green belts and local plans and increase resources in planning departments. It is even more positive that the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) confirmed that this would be on top of the £46m allocated for councils to hire 300 extra planning officers in last October's budget.

We should not be surprised that the NPPF reforms focus on housing. However, the telecoms industry will be disappointed that there were not more positive amendments to section 10 on Supporting high quality communications, the language of which could be more direct in terms of the weight to be attached to the socio-economic benefits of mobile infrastructure and its importance to meet the government's economic aspirations and strategic goals.

Changes to section 6 on Building a strong, competitive economy should be more beneficial for the industry. This now refers directly to digital infrastructure, guiding councils on what should be included in their local development plan policies.

It also contains further reference to the national industrial strategy as well as relevant local industrial strategies and other local policies for economic development and regeneration. This is particularly relevant to the industry because most councils have economic development or digital strategies that are rarely given weight in planning decisions; that should be corrected now these have been cited in the framework.

Furthermore, local planning authorities are advised to 'pay particular regard to facilitating development to meet the needs of a modern economy, including by identifying suitable locations for uses such as … digital infrastructure', and also to 'seek to address potential barriers to investment, such as inadequate infrastructure'.

The framework gives clear direction that development plan policies and decisions should recognise and deal with the specific locational requirements of different sectors, something particularly relevant to telecoms given the practical and technical nature of siting infrastructure.

The same section goes on to mention support for expanding or modernising other industries of local, regional or national importance to support economic growth and resilience, which is similarly relevant to digital infrastructure.

Infrastructure rollout still requires ongoing support

Meanwhile, the prime minister's Plan for change speech on 5 December mentions planning reform that could help with telecoms infrastructure provision.

He alludes to 150 major infrastructure projects stuck in planning. But while each telecoms infrastructure application itself is considered minor, it is part of a major, national infrastructure network, and government should consider that telecoms network in the same way as it does major infrastructure.

With this in mind, it is imperative that government look yet again at NPPF reform with more of a focus on the communications section as well as other measures to support, and create efficiencies in, telecoms infrastructure rollout.

Other recent initiatives in England, such as the 2022 Code of practice for wireless network development and updated permitted development regulations, provide much-needed clarity for telecoms infrastructure deployment.

Nevertheless, the NPPF must go further so officers can attach appropriate weight to the socio-economic benefits of 5G and mobile broadband in line with government aspirations, set out for instance in the Shared Rural Network and the Wireless Infrastructure Strategy.

Alongside this, further reform of the permitted development legislation in Part 16 of The Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) Order 2015 would supercharge the rollout of telecoms infrastructure. Currently there is significant restriction on rooftop deployments in designated areas: given that most larger city and town centres are designated conservation areas, for instance – the very areas where the benefits of 5G and IoT applications would perhaps be most keenly felt – applications can be onerous and deployments delayed.

As these areas often include taller buildings that could host equipment in a sensitive way; removing permitted development restrictions here would help roll out infrastructure, ease pressure on planning departments by removing the need for more minor applications that clog up the system, and encourage the right type of deployment with the least impact. Similarly, permitting development without the need for prior approval on ground-based street poles up to a certain height could help provide 5G in urban and suburban areas.

While significant advances have been made in recent years, it remains imperative to deal with resource constraints in local governance, enhance engagement between industry and stakeholders – possibly through PPAs – and reform planning legislation, policy and guidance at all levels of central and devolved government.

Sean McHenry is head of town planning at Cornerstone

Contact Sean: Email | LinkedIn

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