UKC

Campaigners against the mass roll-out of new telecoms masts in remote parts of Highland Scotland have declared a 'major success', as it emerged that the taxpayer-funded programme has been significantly scaled back.

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That is excellent news! Many of the proposed masts were in thoroughly inappropriate locaations. Credit to the campaigners, and to government for listening. I suppose the fact that this will save a tidy sum is a bonus for government.

Half a billion for TNS coverage in remote peat bogs didn't seem like value for the taxpayer did it?

None in the middle of the Cairngorms? Brilliant!

I see there's to be one on Canna. With community backing, one assumes.

This feels like a win in that fewer masts are proposed in inappropriate locations, and that some of the retained masts, such as those around Strathyre & Balquhidder, are genuinely well-sited to benefit local communities.

But it is still overall a loss in that quite a few of the 44 remaining masts are still in completely inappropriate locations. Which villages will benefit from a swath of 4G coverage across the roadless heart of the Fannichs? One mast is to be built in the heart of a mountainous, boggy, remote wild area in the Central Highlands that I have got to know well in recent years. This mast would not cover any businesses or sites of habitation, and indeed at the mast's location I have seen just one other person over my visits. I had no idea a mast was proposed there, and it has now been approved and I am too late to oppose its construction.

Also, the retained masts are not randomly spread around the Highlands & Islands - they seem quite grouped in the SW Highlands, Ross-shire, and some of the islands, while proposed masts in the N, W & E Highlands and Dumfries & Galloway have been completely dropped. Is it known why the programme has been scaled back in some areas but not others?

The same with the TETRA masts for police use from 25 years ago. It's all about money. These people never give up!