NEW MASTS v UPGRADES
Applications for a NEW MAST are either PRIOR APPROVAL or FULL. At this stage, various documents are submitted as part of the application (such as application form, ICNIRP certificate, SSSI and plans) and there a consultation during which the public are invited to make comments.
If the mast is approved, however, this gives the applicant PERMITTED DEVELOPMENT ad infinitum, which means that the applicant has permission to upgrade with a mere notification letter of their intentions to the LPA AND without a further consultation. This means that the public cannot comment further. (See notes below for exceptions to this).
The applicant can then exercise the permitted development right after 28 days’ notice.
This is referred to as a ‘REGULATION 5 notification.
Note that some LPAs load these cases onto the portal (although there is next to no documentation). Other LPAs do not even put them on their portal, so the public are unaware of the upgrade.
Hence, an approved 15m 4G mast can be upgraded to a 20m 5G mast with a notification letter!!
This is why it is SO important to stop these things in the first place, AND, as part of our objection letters, point out that we are objecting to both 4G/5G for the reasons above.
Notes: in the case of an upgrade in a conservation area (there may be other exceptions), there is a consultation and comments are allowed.
We often send in our “thoughts” even if not invited to do so, especially where 5G is being introduced to a heavily residential area.
CHECKING your local planning portal
It is worth checking this on a weekly basis.
Planning portals come in various flavours so do not all look the same.
Usually, you have tabs for
a SIMPLE SEARCH
ADVANCED SEARCH
WEEKLY LIST
Overall, there are 3 options for checking a weekly list
- WEEKLY LIST tab
- ADVANCED tab (validated date TO and FROM to cover the week BEFORE)
- Somewhere (portals differ) there may be an option to subscribe to weekly list emails from the LPA.
Now, simply eyeball the list for masts and street hubs/kiosks………….
If you find any, copy the details down
We defo need = Council-LPA (e.g. “Trafford”), application number, address and what it is for, +, if possible, link. Then send to estherlistreg@gmail.com. If you are able to do more, that would be great, but this is a good starter for ten.
If you regularly look at the planning register for your LPA and go in via a direct link, sometimes this can fail to work. In this case, simply come right out, start from scratch and “google” “XXXXXX planning applications” and go through the screens to the Search screen.
Can we also take this opportunity to encourage you to register on Esther? Simply send us a username (one-word) and we can register you. You will then be able to view all the applications that we currently know about.