Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what guidance is available for local authorities to help them negotiate wayleaves for their housing stock with telecoms infrastructure providers.

On 27th August, I wrote, together with the Minister for Regional Growth and Local Government, to all tier-1 local authorities in the country on the subject of telecoms infrastructure deployment. This letter highlighted newly published Government guidance on how local authorities can 1) enable access to public assets, such as housing stock, and 2) ensure appropriate valuation of assets for access agreements.

My Department’s Barrier Busting Task Force has offered to meet each authority individually to discuss this guidance and issues particular to each area. Kent County Council took up this offer on the 13th October. Many authorities are taking a proactive approach across the UK, including Croydon, for example, which has signed master wayleaves to connect their social housing stock to gigabit broadband.

Further guidance on these matters can be found on the Government’s Digital Connectivity Portal.