New Barti BBQ sauce launches at Angle's iconic Old Point House
A FARMER from Carmarthenshire is at the centre of a growing legal storm over the UK Government's controversial 5G rollout policy – a policy critics say is slowing progress, not speeding it up.
In 2017, ministers promised a faster, cheaper path to mobile connectivity by changing the law to let telecoms companies pay landowners far less for installing masts. But instead of unleashing 5G, the new rules have triggered a wave of legal battles – and rural Wales is bearing the brunt.
Thomas Richards from Llangennech, who agreed to host a mast in 2016 for around £5,500 a year, was stunned when the new rules allowed the telecoms company to revise their offer to just £3.50 a year.
'Negotiations were very stressful. I felt we were taken advantage of as a family,' he said. 'I can't believe the government is allowing this to happen. Who is going to want a mast on their land now?'
His case is one of more than a dozen disputes across Wales, all stemming from the 2017 reforms to the Electronic Communications Code.
Wales is now a legal hotspot for telecom disputes, with more than 14 tribunal cases since 2021. These include disputes with Cardiff International Airport, South Wales Fire and Rescue Authority, and farmers in Snowdonia and Powys.
The number of mast-related legal cases across the UK has surged from just 33 in the 30 years before the code change to more than 1,100 since 2017.
Many site owners – from farmers and churches to care homes and sports clubs – have reported rent drops of 90 percent or more, often with little say in the matter. Campaign group Protect and Connect say some landowners feel bullied and cornered.
In one case, a hill farmer in North Wales saw his annual rent slashed from £5,500 to £3.50. A park visitor centre lost £9,800 a year in mast income, damaging their ability to operate. A church in mid Wales was left scrambling to pay heating bills after its mast rent collapsed.
In response, telecom companies argue that the changes were necessary to stop landowners charging what they call ransom rents that stalled network upgrades. The UK Government insists the reforms are about making digital connectivity affordable and universal.
The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport said it wants fairer, faster and more collaborative negotiations, and introduced the Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Act in 2022 to encourage dispute resolution.
But critics, including the Farmers' Union of Wales, say the reforms have gone too far. One landowner was offered just £32 total for a 10-year lease – down from an earlier offer of £4,650 per year.
In Pembrokeshire, the battle over connectivity has a familiar ring. Residents in Tenby have been complaining about poor mobile signal for years, with tourists flooding in each summer only worsening the problem.
County Councillor Michael Williams said: 'All the providers are blaming visitor numbers, but that excuse doesn't justify the charges people are paying. It's the same problem every year.'
One resident told The Herald he had missed hospital appointments because of poor signal. Businesses relying on card machines and mobile bookings say the network failures cost them money and reputation.
Efforts to install a 20-metre mast in Tenby to ease pressure have stalled due to planning objections within the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park. Officials say it's a difficult balance between connectivity and conservation.
Another controversial mast plan in the Preseli Hills was recently rejected due to its visual impact. Despite the potential to improve rural signal, inspectors upheld objections that it would harm the landscape.
In Cardiff and other urban areas, rooftop masts are also facing disputes over low renewal offers, showing this issue is not confined to the countryside.
Official Ofcom figures show Wales lags behind on mobile coverage. Only 62 percent of land area in Wales has 4G from all four major networks. In some rural constituencies, that figure drops below 50 percent. Superfast broadband access in Pembrokeshire stands at around 93 percent, still below the Welsh average.
Broadband tells a similar tale of two Waleses. Overall, about 96 percent of homes in Wales can access superfast broadband via fixed lines or wireless solutions – roughly on par with the UK average. But rural counties lag behind. Powys has the lowest superfast availability at just 84 percent of premises. Ceredigion is at 86 percent. Pembrokeshire stands around 93 percent – better, but still below the Welsh average. When it comes to future-proofed networks, the gap is starker: only 40 percent of premises in Pembrokeshire have access to full-fibre broadband so far, compared to nearly 70 percent of premises in Cardiff.
Some relief for landowners has started to arrive via the courts. In a recent case, the Upper Tribunal increased the annual rent for a greenfield mast site from £750 to £1,750, after ruling that the earlier valuation was too low. Farming unions hailed the decision, but warned it was still far below the market rates common before 2017.
Campaigners and MPs are now urging a review of the policy before new rules expand the same approach to 15,000 more sites across the UK. Legal experts warn the number of tribunal cases could double again if this happens.
Telecoms industry representatives argue that the reforms were needed to break deadlock and reduce deployment costs. They say most landowners still agree terms without dispute, and that masts are essential national infrastructure, not just commercial equipment.
But for rural communities, that message is wearing thin. Many feel they are being asked to sacrifice land, income and peace of mind – all while still waiting for improved service.
In Tenby, local plasterer Ben Jones says poor signal is costing him work. 'I've missed bookings from clients because they couldn't get through,' he said. 'One customer said it took him five tries to make contact.'
Another resident, Paul, told The Herald he had missed hospital calls and emergency transport arrangements due to unreliable signal. 'It's ridiculous that in 2025, my phone signal is worse than it was in the 1990s,' he said.
Shops relying on mobile card machines also report frequent outages. One shop owner said: 'It's embarrassing having to explain to customers that we can't process a payment because the network's gone down again.'
There is growing consensus that progress on connectivity must be matched by fairness for those who host it. As the Carmarthenshire farmer put it: 'I want better signal too. But not if it means giving up my land for pennies.'
Bridging the digital divide in Wales may require more than telecom towers. It may demand trust, balance, and real partnership between the countryside and the companies trying to connect it.
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The Guardian
26 minutes ago
- The Guardian
How can England possibly be running out of water?
During the drought of 2022, London came perilously close to running out of water. Water companies and the government prayed desperately for rain as reservoirs ran low and the groundwater was slowly drained off. Contingency plans were drafted to ban businesses from using water; hotel swimming pools would have been drained, ponds allowed to dry up, offices to go uncleaned. If the lack of rainfall had continued for another year, it was possible that taps could have run dry. That, however, was just a taster of what could come down the line. On Tuesday, the government announced a 'nationally significant' water shortage in England, which means the whole country is at risk of running out if the dry weather continues. People across England are already banned from using hosepipes, with more restrictions probable over coming months. The UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (UKCEH), an independent research institute, has warned of exceptionally low river flows. 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So how on earth did famously rainswept England, notorious the world over for being green and wet with our national symbol pretty much a furled umbrella, come to this? Britain's geology and climate means there should be plenty of water. Underground in the south of England the rock is made of chalk, which is very soft and porous. These layers of rock filter rainwater into some of the cleanest water in the world, collecting in huge aquifers that have been tapped by local residents for centuries. Water companies now use those aquifers to provide the majority of the drinking water in some parts of the south. Further north, the rock underfoot is harder; sandstone and limestone, so lacking the benefits of the chalk aquifer. But it tends to receive more rainfall than the south, so there has generally been plentiful water from the skies to fill the reservoirs on which the northern water companies rely. There are also the rivers that crisscross the country, which (when clean) include gin-clear chalk streams buzzing with mayflies and thronging with salmon and other fish. The UK is one of the rainier places in Europe. Some areas are wetter than others. In England, the Lake District generally receives an average of 2,000mm of rainfall a year, while in parts of the south-east it is as low as 700mm. Perhaps it is because the country has always had such rich resources, that they have been taken for granted. Running out of water has never really been in question. But with population growth and climate breakdown, this is starting to look like folly. It was in the 17th century that the New River Company began piping water into London's homes from the springs in nearby Hertfordshire for the very rich. Slowly the technology began to spread and grow in popularity. Over the next decades, England's population would rise dramatically and the water systems of its rapidly growing cities would come under increasing stress. When the Great Stink hit London in 1858 during a heatwave, the civil engineer Joseph Bazalgette had already been commissioned to draw up plans to urgently update the city's sewage system. Known for his tirelessness, Bazalgette checked every connection himself, making thousands upon thousands of notes, and saved many lives as the system diverted sewage away from the city and into the Thames estuary. Later, treatment centres were added to purify the water. Today, consumers are used to having water coming out of a tap and they want to use a lot of it. Future generations, who will be dealing with long, dry summers, would probably be shocked at the profligate way clean tap water was used to flush toilets, water gardens and run washing machines. 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The reservoirs England does have are at their lowest levels in at least a decade, just 67.7% full on average. According to Dr Wilson Chan, a hydroclimatologist at UKCEH, 'above average rainfall over several months is needed to ease pressures on water resources'. Was it the privatisation of the water and sewerage industry in 1989 that has led to this situation? England's water system has been widely criticised, and privatisation has been blamed for a lack of investment in infrastructure. Some say this is owing to the water companies paying out dividends rather than using the money raised by customer bills solely for investment in infrastructure; others blame a privatised regulated monopoly system that has prioritised low customer bills over investment. Experts have also pointed to the regulatory system. 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As the impacts of the climate crisis unfurl around the world, is the UK government awake to the scale of the problem? Nine new reservoirs are in the pipeline to be built before 2050, while there are consultations on reducing demand for water. But this may be too little, too late; many housing developments are on pause because of water scarcity. The first new reservoir planned for Abingdon in Oxfordshire is sited in the same place as the government's new datacentre zone, leading to fears the water will be used to cool servers rather than serve customers in one of the most water-stressed areas of the UK. Green homes experts have said government building codes for new housing should include rainwater harvesting for internal use such as in lavatories and washing machines. People with gardens could use a water butt in summer, so that clean tap water is not being pumped through a hose into garden plants. 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Telegraph
an hour ago
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The Bank of England's credibility is seeping away
The Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) should not have lowered its main policy interest rate this month. That cut from 4.25pc to 4pc was a 'significant error', I wrote last week, that could 'come back to bite us'. Financial market movements over the last week have convinced me I was wrong. The MPC's latest move was in fact a very significant error. If officials at the Bank of England aren't alarmed about the growing gap between the MPC's policy rate and the cost global investors now charge the UK Government to borrow, they should be. And if ministers aren't concerned, not least Treasury ministers, I have to wonder if they really understand what is going on. My main objection to the MPC's latest rate cut is that UK inflation remains high and is rising. By lowering rates when inflation is still clearly a problem, besetting Britain to a greater extent than other comparable economies, the MPC undermines the Bank of England's credibility – at a time when such credibility is sorely needed. During the year to June, the consumer price index rose 3.6pc, up from 3.4pc the previous month. This is the highest headline inflation rate since January 2024, with CPI growth consistently above the 2pc inflation target since last October. Driven by elevated food, energy and transport costs, UK inflation is the highest in the G7 – and has been since June 2024. Britain also uniquely saw month-on-month CPI increases in April, May and June, so our inflation outlier status has become even more stark over recent months. Earlier this month, even the MPC upped its inflation forecast to 4pc this autumn – but raised rates regardless. 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In competitive auctions to lend the Government money, these major institutional investors, even as the MPC has been cutting, have been demanding higher rates when lending to compensate for the elevated inflation they still think is coming. Since last August, as the policy rate has shifted down 1.25 percentage points, the UK's 30-year gilt yield has been pushed sharply up – from less than 4.5pc a year ago to 5.3pc on the morning of Thursday Aug 7, prior to the MPC's midday announcement, a rise of more than 0.8 percentage points in the opposite direction. By last weekend, that market-driven borrowing cost had gone up to 5.43pc, flying in the face of the Bank of England. Some mortgage providers even raised fixed-term lending rates following the MPC's cut – no doubt because they saw gilt yields reflecting investors' concerns the committee's view on inflation is wrong. Such rate-splitting, as I call it, when policy and market rates move against each other, is a sign of growing financial instability. It indicates that market expectations have become unanchored from policymaker preferences – and in the end the market always wins. I'm concerned that, over the past week, we've seen the 30-year rate rise even more, touching 5.57pc on Friday. So since the policy rate has been lowered 0.25 percentage points, the long-term cost of government borrowing has moved rightly the same amount in the opposite direction. I argued last week that by lowering rates when inflation was clearly not tamed, the MPC was in danger of 'rate-splitting' to an even greater extent. That is what has happened. Long-term bond yields are influenced by a multitude of factors, of course, and have lately been nudging up across the world. But the UK's outlier inflation status is matched by its outlier status when it comes to long-term borrowing costs too. Our 30-year yield is also easily the highest in the G7. Even the governments of Europe's previous 'debt-crisis' nations can now borrow long-term money a lot more cheaply than the UK – namely Italy (4.52pc), Greece (4.26pc) and Spain (4.18) at the time of writing. And those rising borrowing costs, of course, need to be paid by the British state – increasingly, it seems, by borrowing even more. In April 2024, the Office for Budget Responsibility estimated that the UK Government would borrow £85bn over the following 12 months. When the fiscal year ended this April, that total was actually £148bn, no less than £105bn of which was spent on debt interest. In June alone, borrowing was £20.7bn – no less than £16.4bn of which was spent servicing our existing national debt. This is utter madness. While the MPC should not have cut rates earlier this month, in the end those really at fault are government ministers – and, more generally, a political and media class that, for so many years, has dismissed the concerns of those of us who have constantly warned that nation states, while they can of course borrow, need to both borrow and spend responsibly. Successive UK governments have not been doing so – today's Labour administration to an increasingly reckless extent.
