The government should revisit payments for farmers and landowners who host telecom masts in order to speed up the rollout of 5G, the Institute of Economic Affairs argues.
The Electronic Communications Code 2017 updated the rules that allow telecom companies to force landowners to accept equipment installations on their land.
The Code changed the basis of land valuation and lowered compensation for farmers and landowners considerably.
In a new paper, the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) says the rules on payments to landowners failed to follow the recommendations of the Law Commission, which would anchor valuations to market prices.
The 2017 reforms reduced and, in many cases, very substantially reduced payments to landowners, the thinktank explains.
The lower compensation has resulted in many resisting equipment being put on their land. Legal action has followed, which is slowing down the 5G network rollout.
In response to these delays, the government has introduced the Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Bill.
However, the IEA's paper says the Bill focuses on the symptoms rather than the cause of the rollout slow down.
It seeks to speed up the legal process and compel landowners to accept masts, undermining property rights, rather than updating the formula for compensating landowners.
The paper recommends that the Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Bill, which was debated in the Lords on Monday (6 June), be amended to restore the valuation principles used before 2017, or draft another rule having similar effect.
James Forder, IEA academic and author of the paper, said there was an urgent need to allow the market to function.
“The price mechanism is a fantastically powerful tool. It is baffling that the government seems determined to stop it operating, thereby depriving landowners of a fair return on their land, and slowing down 5G rollout at the same time.”
Desmond Swayne, MP for New Forest West, welcomed the report, saying that the Electronic Communications Code interfered with a market that was working effectively.
"The government sought to reduce the market price and predictably created a shortage. To address the shortage that it created, the government has now delivered a system that simply bullies landowners into making their sites available at the reduced price.
"This is a classic example of arbitrary government.”
