Telecommunications: Infrastructure

(asked on 12th May 2021) - View Source

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether the average reduction in rental for site owners who lease their land to telecommunications companies for infrastructure has been more or less than 40 per cent proposed by the Government's Impact Assessment accompanying the 2017 Electronic Communications Code.


Answered by
Matt Warman Portrait
Matt Warman
This question was answered on 21st May 2021

The Impact Assessment that accompanied the 2017 reforms did not propose a 40 per cent reduction in rents. The 40% figure estimate referred to in the Impact Assessment was drawn from a report by independent economic analysts (Nordicity). The Impact Assessment made clear the difficulty of predicting the exact amount by which rents would fall, given the fact that the price paid for rights to install digital infrastructure is, in the first instance, a matter for private negotiation between operators and site providers.

Government’s aim was to reduce the cost of deployment, including the amounts paid for access to land, overall. We have not completed a formal assessment on average rent reductions since the 2017 reforms came into effect and therefore cannot comment on what the average rent reductions have been.

Reticulating Splines