At the end of last year, the Isle of Wight’s Conservative cabinet approved the spending of £3 million of tax-payers’ money to encourage BT to install ‘Super-fast broadband’ on the Island.
For this upgrade BT say more cabinets are going to have to be installed on the streets. This isn’t unique to the Island, as it’s happening across the UK. To some it’s a problem.
New Minister: By-pass planning
After the recent National Cabinet reshuffle, one of the changes was at the Department of Culture Media and Sport, with Jeremy Hunt leaving and MP Maria Miller becoming Culture Minister.
One of the first things that she did was pledge to ‘cut the red tape’ around the installation of the new broadband boxes, specifically citing the “unnecessary bureaucracy in the planning system”.
Local Government Association – not happy
The Local Government Association wasn’t too happy about this, saying, “Decisions on where to place broadband infrastructure must consider the impact on local environments rather than simply suit the convenience of companies and their engineers.”
In the original announcement, MP, Maria Miller also said that installing new broadband infrastructure on (or under) private land shouldn’t be held up by long-running negotiations with the land owner. Country Land and Business Associated has come out strongly against this, saying, landowners must be compensated if broadband infrastructure is installed on their property.
What about the Island?
We asked council leader David Pugh if he was supportive of Maria Miller’s approach. He chose not to reply, deferring to the council’s reply that had also been requested.
Today we received this reply – An Isle of Wight Council spokesperson said: “At present, applications to install broadband cabinets do not go through the full planning process, rather they are dealt with using the 28-day prior notification process. This approach works very well.
“It is too early to consider the proposals laid out by the government minister or if we feel it is necessary to respond to any consultation. We will however be speaking to our planning colleagues at other councils to discuss their views.”
Image: mikecattell under a CC BY 2.0 license
