Crispin Blunt

Conservative Party | Reigate

CRISPIN BLUNT CALLS FOR CHANGE IN LAW ON MASTS

Crispin Blunt, MP for Reigate, has today written to the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, calling for a review of the planning laws on masts. This follows the news that two contentious sites for masts may not now have planning permission. O2 believed that they had presumed planning permission for a site on Blackthorn Close following a delay in the receipt of a letter from the Planning Department at Reigate and Banstead Borough Council. In a similar case T-Mobile had assumed consent for a site at the junction of Slipshatch Road and Sandcross Lane.

However, according to Anna Cronin, Director of Policy and Planning at the Borough Council, incorrect assumptions were made in the original submissions rendering both applications void. Crispin Blunt welcomed the news earlier this week:

“I am delighted that it seems the two mobile operators will not be able to hide behind a legal loophole and erect these masts against the wishes of the local community and against the spirit of the planning law. Proper time must be given for local people to question and challenge planning applications. The scale of development and the number of planning applications submitted to Reigate and Banstead make it one of the most hard-pressed planning departments in the South East. The local area is under severe pressure from new development and from infill housing and now there are even challenges to the previously sacrosanct Green Belt. Under such circumstances errors will on rare occasions sneak in; it behoves multinational companies such as O2 and T-Mobile to behave responsibly should this happen.”

In a letter to the Leader of Reigate and Banstead Borough, the minister responsible for telecommunications and planning issues with the Department for Communities and Local Government, Iain Wright MP had indicated that this aspect of the law is under review: “we are currently reviewing the permitted development rights…which grant a general planning permission for some types of telecommunications development.” Crispin Blunt MP has welcomed this development:

“I have written to the Secretary of State to add my voice to those who have called for the process to be simplified. While the local planning authority takes decisions on individual cases, the guidance is set by central government. Centrally set housing targets and binding policies imposed upon local authorities are the real planning authority. I hope that in the light of these recent issues around masts the law will be changed so that local authorities must positively grant planning permission rather than have it slipped through on a technicality.”