With so much bad news around it is good to celebrate a significant campaign win. APRS were part of a coalition led by Mountaineering Scotland and JMT to challenge applications for hundreds of phone masts in remote mountain areas. These would have gone in places that did not serve businesses or communities and were just to comply with a geographical target. The plans have been scaled back by 80% which is a major win for the group of NGOs and communities campaigning on this.
We highlighted this issue to APRS supporters back in August 2024 when we objected to plans for a phone mast at Ryvoan which was being proposed as part of this programme. This was turned down in December 2024. Since then campaigners from JMT, Mountaineering Scotland and many communities have been working, mast by mast, to highlight issues and to advocate to UK Government about the misspending of taxpayer money on a network that does not connect any more people to the phone network, it just blasts access tracks and puts human infrastructure into some of our most spectacular landscapes.
The plans for 258 phone masts in remote and unpopulated areas of Scotland was driven by a geographical target for mobile coverage that did not take account of where people and businesses are located. These plans were to comply with a UK Government requirement to cover 95% of the geographical land-area of the UK with mobile coverage. This is was not about people, communities and businesses getting coverage, it was just a land area target. This resulted in masts being proposed for remote areas which have absolutely minimal benefit for homes or businesses, and are there simply to meet the land-area target. In most cases there were far more appropriate places to site a mast and the results of this successful campaign by the coalition means that the number of masts has gone from 258 down to 44.
Mountaineering Scotland are still concerned about 3 masts that will be situated in the Fannichs, a remote mountain area half way between Dingwall and Ullapool.
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