Imagine this mast appears...on your doorstep

 Image: The Bolton News, 7th March 2023

• Imagine coming home to find that a wooden telegraph pole or a metal telecoms mast had been put up, without any warning, near your home

• Imagine not being given a chance to voice your opposition, through the normal planning process

• Imagine that the company installing this equipment seems indifferent to people's concerns

• Imagine that your council is powerless to act

• Imagine that 'local democracy' is replaced by central government diktat

For many people in the UK, there is no need to imagine any of this. It is happening, right now, outside their homes, and in their communities. In the Government's enthusiasm for rolling out very fast broadband throughout the country, it has changed the planning regime to remove most 'barriers' to the installation of telecoms equipment - including metal masts, and the associated wooden telegraph poles.

For the companies that are installing this equipment, such as IX Wireless, and its trading company 6G Internet, it is much quicker, easier, and cheaper to roll out broadband internet if they don't have to dig up roads in order to bury fibre optic cables. So this is what they do.

• If people don't like these poles and masts that suddenly appear outside their homes - well, tough.

• If the street is already well served by buried internet cables, that doesn't matter.

• If councillors, and even local MPs, object to the appearance of this infrastructure in the area, who cares.

At the moment, one of the companies that has been aggressively rolling out its internet services in this way, IX Wireless, is mostly based in the North West of England. However, it has plans for a nationwide rollout. And it isn't the only telecoms company that's doing this either.

Enough is enough. If you don't want your area to be blighted by these telegraph poles and wireless masts, and all of the negative consequences, then you can do something about it. The same goes for people who are already affected by this wireless telecoms rollout.

Please add your voice to all the other people who are opposed to the indiscriminate rollout of intrusive telecoms infrastructure, by signing the petition below. At 10,000 signatures, the Government will respond to it. At 100,000 signatures, the issue could be debated in Parliament.

This petition can be signed by British citizens and UK residents, and it runs until 6th October 2023.

Let's work together to restore local democracy, and for the right to have a meaningful say in what happens in our area, and outside our homes.

Link to sign the petition: 

'Exclude telecommunication installations from permitted development legislation'