Friday 12th January 2024, 10:39am
Questions about the roll-out of the Shared Rural Network 4G digital telecommunications mast programme were raised at a meeting of The Highland Council yesterday.
A motion put forward by Councillor Kate Willis outlined the problems that the SRN programme was causing in her constituency and asked for it to be paused, reviewed and improved.
The motion was passed with 47 votes, with eight against it and one abstention.
The motion asked The Highland Council to support the work that Mountaineering Scotland, John Muir Trust and the coalition of other outdoor recreation, conservation and community organisations were doing - raising awareness of the shortcomings of the SRN insistence of 95% geographical coverage which proposes masts in remote unpopulated areas, rather than focusing on residences and businesses, and consulting local communities about their needs.
The Highland Council will now write to the Scottish Government and UK Government to ask that Ministers work together, to pause and review the SRN programme and improve it.
Councillor Willis said: “Having received over 40 notification emails for proposed SRN mast locations in my ward (Ward 21), I have become increasingly concerned about the SRN and its focus on geographic coverage, with no community consultation, and no consideration of the considerable environmental and visual impacts many of these masts are going to have. I would like to thank all the councillors who supported my motion.”
Stuart Younie, Mountaineering Scotland’s CEO, said: “Government Ministers are being asked to recognise the concerns raised by a wide range of organisations, community groups and landowners. The Highland Council lending support to our Statement of Concern sends a powerful message to Ministers, that this programme needs urgent review.”
The matter of telecoms masts in remote unpopulated areas, and the waste of public funding putting them there was picked up recently in The Herald.
Image (top right): Rob Bruce
Shared Rural Network
The UK Government digital connectivity programme - the Shared Rural Network (SRN) - aims to achieve 95% mobile phone coverage across Britain focusing on geographical coverage rather than population coverage. This makes little sense in the Highland’s uninhabited mountain and upland landscapes. There has also been very little, or no, consultation with communities in Highland to understand their connectivity needs and to identify appropriate locations for SRN masts so that connectivity is improved for rural communities.
In support of the coalition of community groups and conservation and outdoor recreation organisations in Scotland, this Council agrees to write to Scottish Government and UK Government to ask that Ministers work together, to pause and review the SRN programme and improve it by:
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