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

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what compulsory purchase rights mobile telephone companies have to enable them to erect or maintain their transmitters and other equipment.

The Electronic Communications Code, set out in Schedule 2 to the Telecommunications Act 1984 and amended by the Communications Act 2003, enables electronic communications operators to place apparatus on land. Paragraph 5 offers recourse to the County Court (or the Sherriff’s Court in Scotland) for communications operators to apply for compulsory access to land subject to appropriate compensation and consideration being paid to the occupier of the land.

There are also provisions in Schedule 4 to the Communications Act 2003 which allow the compulsory acquisition of land by communications operators.