BT CEO Calls for Improved Planning Laws to Boost UK Broadband UPDATE
The new CEO of BT Group (inc. EE, Plusnet, Openreach), Allison Kirkby, has told this week’s Deloitte and Enders Media & Telecoms 2024 Conference in London that any future UK government should look to boosting full fibre broadband and 5G mobile by making further changes to existing planning laws.
As it stands, EE’s latest 5G mobile network already covers 75% of the UK’s population (up from 72% in H1) and Openreach’s national gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP network has reached 14 million premises. The latter is currently part of an investment (worth up to £15bn) that is expected to cover 25 million premises by December 2026 (80%+ of the UK) and then up to 30 million by 2030 (nearly universal coverage).
Suffice to say that the operator is making strong progress with its telecoms infrastructure and, over the past decade, the Government has already made a lot of changes to soften existing planning laws to help facilitate such work by network operators. Some examples include moving poles / street cabinets into more flexible Permitted Development (PD) rights and softening the rules on mobile mast upgrades etc.
However, with the 2024 General Election just around the corner, Allison Kirkby has signalled (The Guardian) that one way to support this ongoing work would be to improve “certainty” around regulatory and fiscal policy. Specifically, BT’s boss says the future government will “need to look at planning” (again).
Kirkby made this point at the same time as acknowledging something basic that anybody harbouring any familiarity with the sector has known for the best part of nearly two decades, which is that “Scandinavia is way ahead of the UK” and “part of that is very much driven by the regulatory environment, the planning environment and the general adoption of digital skills and digital services” (see the – 2023 EU Progress Report).
Admittedly, BT’s CEO does rather overlook the company’s own history of having spent many prior years being strongly opposed to investing in building FTTP at scale (something well documented by ISPreview), while instead preferring to focus on their ageing copper line infrastructure. This approach significantly contributed to today’s position, where the UK is playing a long game of catch-up. But on the flip side, it also helped to encourage plenty of alternative networks, which now threaten the incumbents.
Allison Kirkby, CEO of BT Group, said:
“It’s not necessarily market structure that stops the UK having the great networks that I saw in Sweden – a lot of it is restricted by planning. The Swedes, the Norwegians, the Finnish all expected their highways, their trains, to have great connectivity wherever you were, even when you were up in the northern part of the country. A lot of what is not working in the UK is the planning legislation.”
Sadly, the new CEO doesn’t elaborate on precisely what aspects of planning she would like to see changed or improved (at least not in any of the summaries we’ve seen), which seems like a missed opportunity but does also limit any potential risk of fallout from such remarks during a General Election period.
For example, in recent months the news has been full of gripes about the deployment of new telecoms poles from multiple operators, which has grown to become somewhat of a political issue (here and here). Doing anything that might make such deployments even easier, right now, would thus risk being perceived as pushing too far in the wrong direction. BT’s CEO must this tread very carefully.
On the other hand, Openreach and rival operators are trying to find solutions to other problems, such as with the ongoing difficulties of deploying new fibre optic broadband lines into certain large residential buildings / MDUs (here). But that’s arguably more an issue of wayleave (access) agreements than planning, although it is an example of an area where there may still be room for improvement.
We have this morning asked both BT and Openreach if they might be able to elaborate on what sort of planning changes Allison had in mind and we’ll update if any specifics come our way.
UPDATE 12:40pm
Just to add. Some of the additional areas where we know BT and other operators have been seeking improvements concerns support for flexi-permits (here), where a single permit can cover a wide geographical area instead of numerous separate street applications (e.g. Openreach currently has to apply for 300,000 permits a year).
In terms of mobile infrastructure, operators would still like to see it becoming easier and quicker to install higher masts to improve coverage (and thus also limiting / reducing the overall number of sites needed), together with greater freedoms to deploy smaller sites where greater capacity/infill is needed.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook and Linkedin.
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What’s the point of making a vague statement without elaborating. The only reason is it’s something controversial that would give BTOR a bigger advantage
Could be seen as “taking sides” if you say PD isn’t going far enough, and say the Tories implemented that particular tweak, and it’s unpopular.
Saying you want something to change on X – hopefully means whoever is in power post GE, will have discussions with the telecoms industry on their pain points, to see what can be improved.
Identifying a problem is not taking a side, if the solution is easy to implement and has no negative impact then no reason why it needs to be kept a secret, if anything they are taking a side by keeping their solution to the upcoming mr “rather have relative die than pay private healthcare” labour government
A big problem with this country is people getting scared of saying what they think, because some become demonized for pointing out obvious problems
Perhaps because at these types of live events you’re given about ten seconds to answer the question so nobody can go into any real depth.
Automatic approval of planning applications at council level would be a start.
I agree
I’ve just put in a planning application for a dirty, noisy factory right by your house. Do you still think there should be automatic approval?
I’d rather the sensible checks and measure be in place to prevent deliberate abuse by telcos. Ben quite a few stories of tall cabinets right outside people’s windows with no warning when they could have been sited nearby and not block someone’s windows. Also new poles that are crazy high.
Many other reasons too. Where there is wasteful time on process, I agree, but not to remove the rules and checks so telecoms, especially BT, can deploy in a dictator way because its simply giving more money back to shareholders and her salary.
I agree the councils need to chill. It took me over 5 months to get fibre just because op needed a permit to close a lane for 2 hours and afterwards we found out the permit was filled for the wrong road. Luckily the guy just done everything quickly and dipped lol
Telecoms needs to be put on the same footing as other utilities like Water, Electricity and Gas. If a mains to supply to any of those utilities fails, it doesn’t need planning permission for it to be fixed as its seen as key infrastructure, telecoms should be seen in the same light.
Putting it on the same footing will also simplify planning applications and timescales related to that.
We are not in 2004 anymore where broadband was optional, it is now a key aspect of everyday life in which to get things done, we can’t live without it like Lecky, Water and Gas. As such it should be treated so.
Mobile Companies abused the relaxation of planning. They only have themselves to blame. Some Labour MPs are pushing to unwind the 2019 permitted development rights.
Don’t need planning permission to fix faults with existing plant. Can and do need permission from local authorities same as the other utilities which may involve retrospective applications depending on circumstances.
Urgent works bar some specific cases only require streetworks notifications go in within two hours of work starting. This includes telecoms.
From relevant laws:
‘“urgent works” means street works (not being emergency works) whose execution at the time they are executed is required (or which the person responsible for the works believes on reasonable grounds to be required)—
to prevent or put an end to an unplanned interruption of any supply or service provided by the undertaker,
to avoid substantial loss to the undertaker in relation to an existing service, or
to reconnect supplies or services where the undertaker would be under a civil or criminal liability if the reconnection is delayed until after the expiration of the appropriate notice period,
and includes works which cannot reasonably be severed from such works.’
Note that emergency works are a different thing and mean risk to life, limb or property if work not carried out. Same criteria apply to all utilities.
TL;DR on same footing. Difference is impact: wireless services may at least mitigate outages to fixed line, can’t do this with water, electricity or gas.
All the same rules. Telco shows similar impact and unable to mitigate with telecomms then same rules apply.
NIMBY’s do not want anything to spoil their vista, e.g telecom poles, mobile paraphernalia etc, so they shouldn’t complain about not getting 4/5G or FTTP.
Many years ago I was performaing a survey for FTTC is a lovely parish in Leicestershire when I was accosted by the parish spokeswoman asking what I was doing.
Spokeswoman was proud of herself for forcing OR to dig up the road rather than to cut across the village green, and then she complained about the unreliable phone line and poor mobile signal!
Does anyone actually want 5G?
Agree broadband should be seen as a critical service but no reason this cannot be underground.
She has kept it vague because she is really only talking to an incoming Labour government, who she knows have already committed to some other planning reforms for house building.
Afterall, seat predictions for the election next month all show that only Labour is likely to form a majority government.
Planning rules are already pretty much the same for telecoms as gas and electric and most installations do not actually need planning permission. There can be issues with way leaves where Open reach installation cross private land and can be issues with installing into blocks of flats but that’s about it