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2.43 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (Mr. Nick Raynsford): I congratulate the hon. Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin) on his success in securing a second
Adjournment debate on this subject within a few months, and thank him for his kind words of welcome to me in my post. I hope that I shall be able to let him leave the Chamber, if not with a radiant smile on his face, at least with the look of a man who has made progress and feels that the debate has been worth while and positive.
I listened with interest to what the hon. Member had to say about planning for telecommunications masts. I appreciate his concern for the landscape in his constituency, especially in the Stour valley and Dedham vale. As he rightly said, the vale provided a great deal of John Constable's inspiration. It is an area that I know well, have frequently visited and enjoy enormously. I fully support his comments about its considerable quality as part of the English landscape. Part of it is now designated an area of outstanding natural beauty.
Under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, we have an established system for taking decisions on planning applications and appeals that come to the Secretary of State. These are based on locally prepared development plans, whether they be structure plans, local plans or unitary development plans. The public are involved in plan preparation. The local planning authority consults on draft plan proposals before it finally adopts them. Planning decisions are then taken on the basis of the plan unless, to use the words of the 1990 Act,
Planning policy guidance notes set out national policies on different aspects of planning. They provide the context for the local plan making that I have described. Local planning authorities must take their content into account in preparing their development plans. The guidance that they contain may also be material to decisions on individual planning applications and appeals. The hon. Gentleman made the point that it was only guidance, but I should stress that local authorities have to have regard to the guidance and that if they disregard it they can be challenged. Planning policy guidance note 8, which was last revised in December 1992, fulfils that function in relation to telecommunications. The general planning policy set out there is exactly as the hon. Gentleman stated in his speech. He accepts, and I endorse this, that this is an area of bipartisan agreement.
The policy is to facilitate the growth of new and existing telecommunications systems while meeting environmental objectives. These include well-established national policies for the protection of the countryside and urban areas. We want to facilitate the growth of telecommunications systems. Accessible and cost- effective communications systems have a significant role to play in the development of the economy nationally, and indeed in regional and local regeneration. This must not be done, however, at the expense of the environment.
PPG8 spells out a commitment to the environment in the context of telecommunications development. It confirms the need when considering proposals for
telecommunications development to take account of national policies for the protection of designated areas, both urban and rural. I refer here to the sort of environments found in conservation areas, national parks and, crucially in relation to the hon. Gentleman's concern about his constituency, areas of outstanding natural beauty. The national policy considerations that should be taken into account in relation to such areas are set out in full in other PPGs. The PPGs form a composite series of planning guidance. With regard to areas of outstanding natural beauty, PPG7 on the countryside states:
In planning for the roll-out of telecommunications networks, which manifest themselves particularly through the installation of masts and antennas, we are seeking to balance the different interests involved.
The hon. Gentleman will already know this, but it is important that I should put it in context. Installations by licensed telecommunications companies--or code system operators--are governed by the Telecommunications Act 1984, as well as by planning legislation. The need to protect designated areas when telecommunications development is proposed is recognised under both licensing and planning legislation. Licences granted to code system operators under the Telecommunications Act may impose their own conditions designed to help protect these areas. The control of development under the Town and Country Planning Act is managed in a similar way. The installation of any mast in an area of outstanding natural beauty or other designated area as specified in article 1(5) of the General Permitted Development Order 1995 requires a full planning application to be made to the local planning authority concerned.
There is a different approach outside areas of outstanding natural beauty and other designated areas. For these, the order allows code system operators to carry out various types of telecommunications development, including the erection of masts up to 15 m in height, without the need to apply for planning permission. Masts over 15 m require a full planning application. That does not mean that local planning authorities cannot stop masts under 15 m in unsuitable locations. An operator wishing to erect a mast up to 15 m high must apply to the local planning authority for its determination as to whether it wishes to approve within 28 days details of the mast's siting and appearance. The authority can refuse approval to one or both of those aspects, if it considers that that is justified. There is a right of appeal to the Secretary of State if approval is refused. It is important that local planning authorities--I am not talking of the hon.
Gentleman's authority but making a general point--make arrangements to enable them to process such applications effectively within the 28-day period.
PPG8 encourages local planning authorities to include in their development plans policies for the siting of telecommunications equipment such as masts. The plans should take account of the limitations imposed by the nature of the telecommunications network and technology, and of the need to protect the best and most sensitive environments. The number of plans that include such policies is increasing. Local authority plans generally apply national landscape conservation policies on a site-specific basis and often include policies for locally defined areas of landscape importance. That could include an area adjacent to an area of outstanding natural beauty as well as the AONB itself. Once they have been adopted, those policies provide the starting point for decisions on planning applications for masts and related telecommunications development by the local planning authority concerned, or on occasion, by the Secretary of State determining an appeal.
Other material factors to be considered alongside the plan include, as PPG8 points out, the significance of the proposed development as part of a national network. Material considerations can also include visual amenity and the potential for screening the proposed development. The visibility of a proposed mast from within and without a designated area such as an AONB can be a material consideration. The planning arrangements that are in place are intended to offer the basis for rational and balanced decision making on the siting of developments such as masts.
Overall, it is desirable to keep the number of telecommunications masts to a minimum, whether operative or redundant. In the latter case, both the telecommunications code and the operator's licence obligations require that apparatus must be removed when redundant. Provisions under the planning Act reinforce that approach. It is a condition of the General Permitted Development Order that redundant apparatus is removed. Local authorities may attach similar conditions to any planning permissions that they grant.
With proposals for new apparatus, licences that are issued to operators under the Telecommunications Act already include conditions requiring them to take all reasonable steps to investigate the possibility of mast sharing. PPG8 sets out the established policy on mast sharing. It attaches considerable importance
Paragraph 27 of the PPG advises that
"material considerations indicate otherwise".
The hon. Gentleman mentioned a particular planning inquiry associated with potential mast development in his constituency. As he will expect, at this point I should make it clear that it is not appropriate for me to comment on the merits or otherwise of that or, indeed, any particular case. To do so might prejudice any future consideration of cases, including this case, that may come to the Secretary of State for decision. So the comments that I make will inevitably be of a general nature. Nevertheless, I hope that they will be helpful.
"In general, policies and development control decisions affecting AONBs should favour conservation of the natural beauty of the landscape. In all cases the environmental effects of new proposals will be a major consideration".
I am happy to give the hon. Gentleman the first assurance that he sought, that the undertaking given by the hon. Member for Mole Valley (Sir P. Beresford)--I, too, had to check the constituency--is valid. Visibility from an area of outstanding natural beauty can be a material consideration in relation both to prior approval and to full planning applications. I will outline the distinction between those in a moment. The assurance that the hon. Gentleman sought is there. I confirm that the visibility of a mast from within an area of outstanding natural beauty is a factor that can and should be taken into account.
"to keeping to a minimum the numbers of radio and telecommunications masts, and of the sites for such installations. The sharing of masts will help achieve this, where practicable, as will the use of existing buildings to site new antennas."
That is a policy that we particularly subscribe to and wish to develop. We already have what amounts to a "sequential test", which applies predominantly to out-of-town shopping, but a similar approach exists in relation to telecommunications masts.
"local planning authorities may reasonably expect applicants for large masts to show evidence that they have explored the possibility of erecting antennas on an existing building, mast or other structure".
We are considering how we can take that further. On the practice front, I understand that the operators are piloting new approaches in the use of existing structures. In future, we may see more antennae attached to electricity pylons,
for example. I appreciate that there are technical constraints that mean that mast sharing is not always a practical option. There are questions, too, of visual impact to be considered. Sometimes the installation of a further smaller mast may be preferable to additional antennae enlarging the silhouette of an existing mast. Those are just the sort of considerations about mast siting that can benefit from early discussions between operators and local planning authorities.
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