Asked by: Bambos Charalambous (Labour - Enfield, Southgate)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, which local authorities have received planning applications for emergency services communications masts as part of the Emergency Services Network roll out.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The Emergency Services Network (ESN) is being built by EE, by upgrading their existing network. This includes building over 650 additional 4G radio masts across this country, as part of their contractual obligations to ensure coverage on 218,000km of major and minor roads.
In addition to the masts built by EE, the Home Office is building a further 292 masts in the most remote and rural areas of Britain. This set of masts is referred to as ‘Extended Area Services’ (EAS) within ESN.
The Home Office does not hold details of planning permission for ESN masts that form part of EE’s contracted ESN coverage. This response is limited to providing information with regards to the EAS sites that are being built by the Home Office.
Planning applications have been submitted by the following local authorities:
Angus Council; Argyll and Bute Council; Brecon Beacons National Park; Cairngorms National Park; Carlisle City Council; Carmarthenshire County Council; Ceredigion County Council; Conwy County Borough Council; Dartmoor National Park; Denbighshire County Council; Dumfries and Galloway; Dumfries and Galloway Council; East Lothian Council; Exmoor National Park, Highland Council; Lake District National Park; Loch Lomond & The Trossachs National Park; Monmouthshire County Council; North Ayrshire Council; North York Moors National Park; Northumberland County Council; Northumberland National Park; Orkney Islands Council; Peak District National Park; Perth and Kinross; Powys County Council; Scottish Borders; Scottish Borders Council; Shropshire Council; Snowdonia National Park; South Ayrshire Council; South Lakeland District Council; Teignbridge District Council; Wrexham; Yorkshire Dales National Park.
Asked by: Bambos Charalambous (Labour - Enfield, Southgate)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, which local authorities have approved planning applications for emergency services communications masts as part of the Emergency Services Network roll out.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The Emergency Services Network (ESN) is being built by EE, by upgrading their existing network. This includes building over 650 additional 4G radio masts across this country, as part of their contractual obligations to ensure coverage on 218,000km of major and minor roads.
In addition to the masts built by EE, the Home Office is building a further 292 masts in the most remote and rural areas of Britain. This set of masts is referred to as ‘Extended Area Services’ (EAS) within ESN.
The Home Office does not hold details of planning permission for ESN masts that form part of EE’s contracted ESN coverage. This response is limited to providing information with regards to the EAS sites that are being built by the Home Office.
Planning applications have been approved by the following local authorities:
Angus Council; Argyll and Bute Council; Brecon Beacons National Park; Cairngorms National Park; Carlisle City Council; Carmarthenshire County Council; Ceredigion County Council; Conwy County Borough Council; Dartmoor National Park; Denbighshire County Council; Dumfries and Galloway; Dumfries and Galloway Council; East Lothian Council; Exmoor National Park, Highland Council; Lake District National Park; Loch Lomond & The Trossachs National Park; Monmouthshire County Council; North Ayrshire Council; North York Moors National Park; Northumberland County Council; Northumberland National Park; Orkney Islands Council; Peak District National Park; Perth and Kinross; Powys County Council; Scottish Borders; Scottish Borders Council; Shropshire Council; Snowdonia National Park; South Ayrshire Council; South Lakeland District Council; Teignbridge District Council; Wrexham; Yorkshire Dales National Park.
Please note that whilst the above local authorities have already approved some planning applications, there may also be planning applications pending approval with the same local authorities where the Home Office is building multiple ESN EAS sites within the same local authority boundary.
Asked by: Brendan O'Hara (Scottish National Party - Argyll and Bute)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 13 July 2020 to Question 71074, on Emergency Services Network: Strathconon, if she will take steps to allocate funding to extended area services sites across Argyll and Bute as soon as possible.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
Funding has been allocated to sites across Argyll and Bute, we expect to commence works to activate these sites in 2022 and complete towards the end 2024.
Asked by: Brendan O'Hara (Scottish National Party - Argyll and Bute)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the Extended Area Service programme, for what reason only six sites in Argyll and Bute are suitable for use by a commercial 4G service.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
We have chosen a future-proofed design for all mast structures in Bute and Argyll, meaning that they can be easily upgraded to allow access by the UK’s commercial mobile operators to improve coverage to communities.
A number of EAS sites are not currently able to support commercial services for technical or financial reasons. The HO is working with DCMS under the SRN programme to provide significant investment in many of these sites to enable 4G coverage to be possible from as many of the EAS sites as possible.
Asked by: Brendan O'Hara (Scottish National Party - Argyll and Bute)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the (a) number and (b) location of new mobile sites under the Emergency Services Network contract which will be located in Argyll and Bute constituency are; how many sites in that same area have gained planning approval; how many sites in that same area have entered the build phase; how many sites in that same area were live as of 1 January 2018; how many sites in that same area are being built with the capacity for multi-occupancy; and how many sites in that same area have a confirmed second tenant.
Answered by Nick Hurd
I can confirm there will be c.75 new EE sites and 17 Extended Area Service (EAS) sites located in the constituency of Argyll and Bute.
All new EE sites are being built and delivered to agreed Home Office timeframes and where possible will go live earlier to support commercial coverage. Of the 75 sites, 59 have planning permission. 7 of the new sites are commercially available.
In respect of EAS sites I can confirm that there are currently 17 sites proposed in Islay, Jura, Mull and the Kintyre Peninsula and 3 have planning permission approved (or 3 HoTs signed – as none have yet entered the build phase).
Of the c.500 new sites EE is building, 291 will transfer over to the Home Office at the end of the contract term. EE is making available details of all shareable new sites to other mobile network operators proactively both directly and through an existing website used by the industry to arrange site sharing. EE has made available the details of 350 sites. EE is confident that the 291 sites will transfer to the Home Office will be selected from this portfolio, and the Home Office and EE have now agreed 104 of these sites (and are working on confirming on which of the remainder will make up the rest of the 291). These will be shareable in accordance with the terms of the EC Decision in relation to State aid for this Programme.
Separately the Home Office, through the EAS project are delivering circa 292 individual sites. I would also like to reassure you that the Home Office has been proactive in seeking to build masts that support multi-operator use where practicable.
Finally I thought it helpful to remind you that the Emergency Services Network is designed to, first and foremost, deliver a ‘blue-light’ communications service.
Asked by: Brendan O'Hara (Scottish National Party - Argyll and Bute)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, the (a) number and (b) location of mobile sites for the Emergency Services Network contract in Argyll and Bute constituency which are being built using state aid; how many such sites have gained planning approval; how many such sites have entered the build phase; how many such sites were live as of 1 January 2018; how many such sites are being built with the capacity for multi-occupancy; how many such sites have a confirmed second tenant; and how much money from the public purse has been allocated to each such site.
Answered by Nick Hurd
I can confirm there will be c.75 new EE sites and 17 Extended Area Service (EAS) sites located in the constituency of Argyll and Bute.
All new EE sites are being built and delivered to agreed Home Office timeframes and where possible will go live earlier to support commercial coverage. Of the 75 sites, 59 have planning permission. 7 of the new sites are commercially available.
In respect of EAS sites I can confirm that there are currently 17 sites proposed in Islay, Jura, Mull and the Kintyre Peninsula and 3 have planning permission approved (or 3 HoTs signed – as none have yet entered the build phase).
Of the c.500 new sites EE is building, 291 will transfer over to the Home Office at the end of the contract term. EE is making available details of all shareable new sites to other mobile network operators proactively both directly and through an existing website used by the industry to arrange site sharing. EE has made available the details of 350 sites. EE is confident that the 291 sites will transfer to the Home Office will be selected from this portfolio, and the Home Office and EE have now agreed 104 of these sites (and are working on confirming on which of the remainder will make up the rest of the 291). These will be shareable in accordance with the terms of the EC Decision in relation to State aid for this Programme.
Separately the Home Office, through the EAS project are delivering circa 292 individual sites. I would also like to reassure you that the Home Office has been proactive in seeking to build masts that support multi-operator use where practicable.
Finally I thought it helpful to remind you that the Emergency Services Network is designed to, first and foremost, deliver a ‘blue-light’ communications service.
Asked by: Chris Evans (Labour (Co-op) - Islwyn)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, which parliamentary constituencies do not fall entirely within the 90 per cent coverage of the 4G replacement system being considered as sole bidder for Emergency Services as part of the Emergency Services Mobile Communications Programme.
Answered by Mike Penning
The Emergency Services Mobile Communications Programme (ESMCP) will provide geographic coverage to 97% of the country (including the 90% required by the Regulator) by requiring the Mobile Services supplier to infill commercial coverage area and extend their network over sites provided by ESMCP’s Extended Area Services (EAS) project.
Listed below are the Parliamentary Constituencies that do not fall entirely within the 90% coverage (as required by the Regulator), and those that do not fall entirely within the 97% coverage (with a further 7% provided by ESN) are:
Parliamentary Constituency | Not met 90% | Not met 97% |
Aberavon Co Const | * | * |
Aberconwy Co Const | * | |
Angus Co Const | * | * |
Arfon Co Const | * | |
Barrow and Furness Co Const | * | |
Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk Co Const | * | * |
Bishop Auckland Co Const | * | |
Brecon and Radnorshire Co Const | * | * |
Bridgwater and West Somerset Co Const | * | * |
Carmarthen East and Dinefwr Co Const | * | * |
Central Devon Co Const | * | |
Clwyd South Co Const | * | * |
Clwyd West Co Const | * | * |
Copeland Co Const | * | * |
Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale Co Const | * | * |
East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow Co Const | * | |
Hexham Co Const | * | * |
High Peak Co Const | * | |
Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey Co Const | * | * |
Kilmarnock and Loudoun Co Const | * | |
Lancaster and Fleetwood Co Const | * | |
Ludlow Co Const | * | * |
Montgomeryshire Co Const | * | * |
North Devon Co Const | * | |
Ochil and South Perthshire Co Const | * | * |
Penrith and The Border Co Const | * | |
Perth and North Perthshire Co Const | * | * |
Ribble Valley Co Const | * | * |
Richmond (Yorks) Co Const | * | * |
Scarborough and Whitby Co Const | * | |
Skipton and Ripon Co Const | * | * |
South West Wiltshire Co Const | * | |
Stirling Co Const | * | * |
Thirsk and Malton Co Const | * | * |
Totnes Co Const | * | |
Westmorland and Lonsdale Co Const | * | |
West Dunbartonshire Co Const | * | |
Dwyfor Meirionnydd Co Const | * | * |
Ceredigion Co Const | * | * |
Torridge and West Devon Co Const | * | |
North Cornwall Co Const | * | |
Berwick-upon-Tweed Co Const | * | * |
South East Cornwall Co Const | * | |
South West Devon Co Const | * | |
Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross Co Const | * | * |
Ross, Skye and Lochaber Co Const | * | * |
Moray Co Const | * | * |
Na h-Eileanan an Iar Co Const | * | * |
Argyll and Bute Co Const | * | * |
West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine Co Const | * | * |
Gordon Co Const | * | |
East Lothian Co Const | * | |
North Ayrshire and Arran Co Const | * | * |
Dumfries and Galloway Co Const | * | * |
Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire Co Const | * | |
Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock Co Const | * | * |
Preseli Pembrokeshire Co Const | * |