Towering feud in the air over phone mast rents

Rival campaigners are locked in a battle to balance the digital needs of rural areas with the interests of landowners
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Two former Labour MPs have gone head-to-head in an increasingly bitter battle over Britain’s rural broadband ambitions.
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Their row centres around changes that make it cheaper to expand rural coverage in the UK. Anna Turley, a former civil servant turned MP for Redcar, is defending landowners and landlords via the Protect and Connect campaign, while Patricia Hewitt chairs the Speed Up Britain campaign on behalf of telecoms companies.
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Protect and Connect wants to reform a law which cut the amount landlords are paid in a bid to make it cheaper for phone firms to set masts up, with the aim of improving patchy signal in rural areas. Meanwhile, Speed Up Britain is campaigning for better mobile connectivity across the UK.
Turley, 30 years Hewitt’s junior, reveres Hewitt's achievements in her previous career. “I don’t know Patricia Hewitt personally,” Turley said last week. “It’s a shame our paths didn’t cross during our parliamentary careers – I have a huge amount of respect for her and for her achievements as part of the last Labour government.” Hewitt, meanwhile, opted not to discuss any similarities between the two.
Despite the common career paths, Hewitt and Turley have found themselves at loggerheads over a government consultation for the second time in five years. In 2017, the Electronic Communications Code was amended to reduce the value of rental agreements for phone masts to landlords. Subsequently, landlords were only allowed to charge at the market value of land, not the value of the land including equipment. The result was one-sided, with landowners having comprehensively lost out.
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Dialling up the tension
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In 2021, the battle still fundamentally boils down to cost, and the access of telecoms companies to mast sites. Even by Speed Up Britain’s numbers, which are disputed by the Protect and Connect campaign, rent cuts have been notably more steep than the Government’s own impact assessments. Speed Up Britain believes the average rent cut is around 63pc, one and a half times higher than the 40pc government expected to see.
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Despite previously having described a Telegraph report revealing rent cuts of 90pc as “fictional”, senior figures within the Speed Up Britain campaign later acknowledged that by their own data, there had been at least two dozen agreements of that nature.
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Hewitt says that the initial approach of telecoms companies “didn’t feel fair”, despite being within the code, and believes that deals are now being struck more cooperatively.
AP Wireless, which acts as an agent for a number of mast owners, accused telecoms companies of trying to bully landowners into a significantly reduced rate. Tom Evans of AP Wireless says: “Since the introduction of the code in 2017, we have received multiple legal notices from the main operators and tower companies. Our analysis of the rents set out in the notices from across the UK shows an average of a 94pc reduction on the passing rent.”
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Given the encouragement for rental agreements to be renegotiated following the changes in 2017, even the Government itself became one of hundreds of landlords to see legal proceedings begin because of the newly implemented code. Twenty-two Whitehall, home to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, was pursued by Cornerstone, one of the most aggressive landlords in the market. Eventually, the Government agreed to a rent reduction of 46pc, and a six-figure sum.
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Britain's data disconnect
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Hewitt and Speed Up Britain say that the rent cuts are meant to ensure there is a wider access to high-speed internet across the country. However, almost five years after the code was introduced, there is little impact on the “not-spot” sites where there is no connectivity.
Hewitt says this is a sign the code needs further reform, and is not due to a lack of interest from telecoms companies.
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Despite Hewitt’s warm words, major firms were not so eager for rural connectivity when discussing the rollout of 5G in 2019. Vodafone’s chief technology officer Scott Petty said rural connectivity “commercially doesn’t make a lot of sense... There aren’t many people there, they don’t pay for the services, and therefore it’s hard to build a case for that”.
On average, a mast rental agreement is only worth £6,000 a year. Despite the small sums, protracted legal battles have been fought over adjustments.
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In many cases, the cost of engaging in a legal battle over notices far outstripped the value of the contracts themselves. One landlord was served a legal letter by hand, by a lawyer engaged by a landlord, over a rent which had an annual value of £210.
According to the landlord, the cost of the train ticket to serve the notice alone would have been two and a half months of rent under the agreement.
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Sources close to the mast operators outline the reason for spending hand over fist to push down rents worth a maximum of a few thousand pounds: precedent. With digital infrastructure becoming an increased item of focus for governments, a legal battle over a small site in middle England becomes a matter of life and death.
It’s likely that costs of lobbying, legal fees and campaigns are set to eat a significant chunk of any potential savings for those pushing for changes.
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One case has already made it to the Supreme Court, where one barrister estimated the costs for Cornerstone would exceed £500,000.
Privately, landowners expect to lose the upcoming battle over the consultation. Speed Up Britain and telecoms companies have shown remarkable skill for getting the Government on side to their agenda.
When one member of the Protect and Connect campaign first saw the new consultation, he said he could have believed Speed Up Britain had written it themselves.
Rishi Sunak, while a minister for housing, communities and local government in 2019, even wrote to councils encouraging them to ask for lower rents on mast sites.
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In a letter written jointly with then digital minister Margot James, Sunak encouraged councils to work “hand in hand” with telecoms companies over rental payments, which lawyers claim meant rents to private landowners were forced down even further.
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Despite a stated desire to improve connectivity and work cooperatively in the future, the hostilities between both sides seem set to continue. “If I was a landowner and I was offered a 90pc cut, what should I do?” posed one phone mast operator. “I guess I would threaten to remove the site.”