The Road to the Isles littered with phone masts?

Loch Rannoch is one of the heart-lifting place names mentioned in the song “The Road to the Isles”  – “Sure, by Tummel and Loch Rannoch/ And Lochaber I will go/ By heather tracks wi heaven in their wiles/ Oh the far Coolins are puttin’ love on me/ As step I wi my cromak to the isles”. 

But this beauty may soon be marred by an unnecessary terrestrial phone mast.  Vodafone is trying to quash a refusal by Perth and Kinross council of permission to erect a 20-metre mast, and presumably a dirt road to service it, on wild land north-west of Loch Rannoch. The council said the structure could ruin the “sense of awe and sanctuary” in this special place. It said it would create an “incongruous, ­eye-catching, man-made feature which would be visible for around five kilometres within an upland valley”. It did not find the mast, far from roads and homes, would offer any benefits. 

This area is within one of Scotland’s ‘National Scenic Areas” and thus should be protected from development. But Vodafone is attempting to use a loophole in planning law – the “Class 67” rules. These were intended to speed up necessary telecoms infrastructure. Citing these means Vodafone can claim presumed consent, doesn’t have to present a case for any benefit the mast will bring, or carry out an environmental impact assessment. (The deadline to make representations against this mast is July 3 – details below.) 

The context is that the UK government signed up to an ill-thought-out, legally-binding contract with the four main mobile phone providers to cover 95% of the UK with terrestrial phone coverage.

The terms of the Shared Rural Network deal are that the phone companies will shell out to put up new masts in areas that already have some coverage. But where there is no existing cover, the public purse will pay. The phone companies get to bill the UK government for about £1 million per mast. There is a pot of half a billion available for this, most of it to be spent on erecting hundreds of masts across Scotland’s unspoilt land. 

A target to provide 95% of communities with terrestrial signal might make sense –  but not of the landmass. Nobody lives or works near most of them. A hillwalker might break a leg or get lost. But the topography of the Highlands is such that satellite phone signal is a much better solution for emergencies  – that is what the mountain rescue uses. New mobiles such as the latest generation of iPhones are already equipped with satellite calling as an emergency feature. As well as this, in many cases terrestrial phone signal is already available just a few metres from the planned masts.

Opposition mounts

Mountaineers and hillwalkers are outraged by this plan, the only justification for which appears to be the idea that they might need to make emergency calls. They go to these places because they are unspoilt – they don’t want their mere presence to be used as an excuse to change their character. 

I have rarely read such a careless piece of nonsense as this statement by the Department for Science, ­Innovation and Technology (DSIT) in response to an article by the National’s Nan Spowart on the Loch Rannoch mast last week 

“A spokesperson told the Sunday National: ‘The Shared Rural Network is a once-in-a-generation chance to bring fast, reliable 4G mobile coverage to the hardest-to-reach parts of the country, helping emergency services save lives, supporting tourism and driving economic growth. Regardless of the number of premises in some locations, the masts will provide coverage for those who live, work and explore in those rural communities.”

Mountain rescue groups don’t go into the hills peering at their phones to see how many bars they have. And – “Regardless of the number of premises in some locations, the masts will provide coverage for those who live, work and explore in those rural communities” – what is this supposed to mean? If nobody lives and works there, then where is the use case? Walkers visiting the area are more likely to be upset and angered by these pointless masts than to see them as a boost for tourism. 

The only case I can see where someone might want one of these masts is if they were a cynical landowner who thought they might be able to piggyback other development plans onto the back of the mast and the service road. It is hard to get permission to cut a road through scenic wild areas so that could potentially be advantageous for some. 

Most of these masts are opposed by all nature, environmental, mountaineering groups, the local community councils and local councils because they will cause noise pollution, disruption, environmental pollution, with diesel needed to run the generators they require and vehicles to refuel and service them. The phone companies say the sites are small – “the size of a tennis court” but they don’t typically mention the access roads that will be required.

Rural action

The Shared Rural Network Action Group has a Facebook page where they are chronicling the various mast applications. Several interested groups have got together to produce a list of criteria to help determine if each proposed mast is likely to be useful or not. But the phone companies have no legal obligation to use these criteria. 

A member of the SRN Action Group posted on the FB page:

“Under this criteria the mast at Aird of Sleat, on the Camas Daraich / Point of Sleat walk in Skye – currently now under construction – should never have gone ahead. It’s destroying a beautiful landscape and unique sea, mountain and island viewpoints for no real purpose at all. It’s really sad to see it in progress, an industrial construction impacting the very soul of the place.

‘At the moment there are signs on the walking track and a digger. I don’t want to start photographing the digger, as it’s not his fault at all. He’s a nice person and just doing his job. However, when the actual mast goes up I will do a before and after picture. The mast is being sited near Loch Aruisg (pictured below from the cairn) and right next to the popular walking track to Camas Daraich sandy beach. It will be in the way of the views of Eigg and Rum (pictured), visible from the sea and the Mallaig Armadale ferry and will tower above the walking track to Camas Daraich – which is one of the most beautiful walks in the entire country. 4g signal is already available when in line of sight from the Mallaig mast across the sea, so the construction serves no sensible purpose.”

This is why companies like Vodafone are pushing hard to get permission to erect diesel-fuelled terrestrial phone masts in Scotland’s most iconic areas. They intend, for example, to put four masts along the back of An Teallach, one of Britain’s most beautiful mountain ridges. The map of applications to build masts in ‘Not Spots’ – the financially-exciting areas for the phone companies under this contract – is almost exactly the same as the map of areas designated as wild land – go figure! Clearly, the UK government didn’t. 

Anyone who loves these bonnie places, with, as the song says, “the heather-honey tang upon each name”; who feels the pull of the blue islands and “the far Coolins”, anyone who has ever “smelt the tangle o the Isles”, will want to help defend them from this bizarre exercise in mendacity and profiteering.

To object to Vodafone’s efforts to overturn Perth and Kinross council’s refusal of the mast at Loch Rannoch, email the case worker Laura.Walker@gov.scot in the Planning and Environmental Appeals team, and dpea@gov.scot, citing ref PAC-340-2004; or call 0300 244 6668. The closing date for representations is July 3.

Here is a Substack I wrote last year about the plan to build a mat at Coire Mhic Nobhuil – that application was withdrawn but if Vodafone wins the case for the Loch Rannoch mast it could return.

First published on the author’s A Letter from Scotland Substack. Featured image via the Shared Rural Network Action Group. Image of Loch Rannoch courtesy of David Gow