Mobile telephone operators can erect most kinds of aerial
arrays without planning permission. They do have to tell the
Local Planning Authority (LPA) about their intention and in some
cases the LPA can require a formal planning application.
This is called a Notification Procedure.
- The cellphone operator notifies the LPA of its intention
to erect a new mast or make a change to an existing one.
- The LPA then has 56 days to decide whether to call for a
full planning application.
- If the LPA does not "call in" the Notification, the
operator needs no further consent. If the LPA does call it in,
the operator requires planning consent for its proposal and the
LPA must process the application in the usual way.
When the Notification Procedure was first introduced for
cellphone masts, the period for call in was only 28 days. Some
LPAs had difficulty in meeting this deadline. West Devon
Borough Council developed a procedure which has enabled us to
cope with it - though it is a good deal easier now that the
Notification Period has been extended to 56 days.
Our procedure has been widely adopted by other LPAs and is now
regarded as a model.
The West Devon Procedure
-
The decision to call in a Telecom Mast Notification is formally
delegated to the Borough Planning Officer (BPO). He will make that
formal decision after the end of any period for public
consultation.
-
The BPO also consults elected members: a Telecom
Panel of four councillors from the Planning Committee
can meet at short notice to consider Notifications. Because the
notice of meeting sometimes has to be shorter than that required to
convene legally a sub-committee, the Telecom Panel does not
make a legal decision, but may advise the BPO to call in a
particular notification.
-
The Telecom Panel consists of the Chairman and Vice-Chairman of
the Planning Committee and two other members, one from the
north and one from the south of the borough. The councillor(s)
representing the application ward also attends.
-
Neither the Telecom Panel nor the BPO can "approve" a
Notification. The only power that the Panel has is to advise
the BPO to call in the Notification for a full planning
application. In practice, this has the effect of a direction to
the BPO, though, legally, the Panel has no power so to direct.
Similarly, the BPO on behalf of the LPA has power only to call
in the Notification for a full planning application; he cannot
"refuse" consent for the development: only the subsequent planning
application (if made) can be refused.
-
The Panel's meeting will often take place before the
consultation period expires. Whilst the Panel's members will
usually have been lobbied by the public about controversial
Notifications, their advice to the BPO is legally just
another "representation" that he will consider when deciding
whether to call in the Notification.
This procedure delivers the following objectives:
-
it meets the deadlines (even when we had only 28 days) for call
in;
-
it ensures that elected members are involved in the process.
Like many planning issues, it is a little complicated and has
some subtle legal twists that give us some representational
headaches, not least that the public find it difficult to
understand. I hope this makes it a little clearer than before.
14 August 2004