Skip to content
Please be aware the content below has been generated by an AI model from a source PDF.

Digital Infrastructure - Engagement version

Top­ic: Digit­al infrastructure

Engage­ment ver­sion August 2024

Require­ments addressed in this section

Table 1 Inform­a­tion required by the Town and Coun­try Plan­ning (Scot­land) Act 1997, as amended, regard­ing the issue addressed in this section.

Sec­tionRequire­ment
Sec­tion 15(5)(d)the infra­struc­ture of the dis­trict (includ­ing com­mu­nic­a­tions, trans­port and drain­age sys­tems, sys­tems for the sup­ply of water and energy, and health care and edu­ca­tion facilities).
Sec­tion 15(5)(e)how that infra­struc­ture is used.

Links to evidence

Sum­mary of evidence

Digit­al con­nectiv­ity is a key ele­ment in the con­tin­ued eco­nom­ic growth with­in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park as well as being vital to the well-being of the loc­al res­id­ents. With an increas­ing num­ber of pub­lic and private ser­vices mov­ing to online based plat­forms it is vital to the life and prosper­ity of rur­al com­munit­ies in the Nation­al Park. With an increas­ing num­ber of people access­ing ser­vices via their mobile phones 4G avail­ab­il­ity is argu­ably just as import­ant as super­fast broad­band con­nectiv­ity. With the phas­ing out of 3G ser­vices. 4G con­nectiv­ity is vital for a num­ber of reas­ons including:

  • Improved access to information
  • Eco­nom­ic development
  • Enhanced com­mu­nic­a­tion (with the recent increase in video com­mu­nic­a­tion becom­ing the norm)
  • Agri­cul­tur­al development
  • Edu­ca­tion and skills
  • And access to emer­gency services.

There remain sig­ni­fic­ant gaps in both 4G and super­fast broad­band avail­ab­il­ity in the Nation­al Park as dis­cussed earli­er in this paper. To address this a num­ber of new tele­coms masts will have to be installed to improve 4G connectivity.

Altern­at­ive tech­no­lo­gies such as fixed wire­less net­work and satel­lite net­work options are avail­able in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park and can be util­ised if it is not pos­sible to attain fixed broad­band. There are con­straints asso­ci­ated with fixed wire­less net­work includ­ing the line-of-sight require­ments, weath­er effects and lim­ited range — factors which present par­tic­u­lar chal­lenges in the geo­graphy and cli­mate of the Nation­al Park. Satel­lite net­work con­nec­tions can also be con­sidered as the last resort if all oth­ers fail, how­ever present a fin­an­cial bar­ri­er to access­ib­il­ity due to their high­er install­a­tion (set-up) and oper­at­ing costs.

Policy con­text

Infra­struc­ture Invest­ment Plan 2021 – 2022 to 2025 – 2026

The Infra­struc­ture Invest­ment Plan out­lines the stra­tegic approach to deliv­er­ing Scotland’s Nation­al Infra­struc­ture Mis­sion to increase eco­nom­ic growth by increas­ing annu­al invest­ment in Scotland’s infra­struc­ture. In deliv­er­ing this vis­ion, the Infra­struc­ture Invest­ment Plan focuses on three core stra­tegic themes for guid­ing invest­ment decisions in Scot­land namely:

  • Enabling the trans­ition to net zero emis­sions and envir­on­ment­al sustainability
  • Driv­ing inclus­ive eco­nom­ic growth
  • Build­ing resi­li­ent and sus­tain­able places.

The second theme address­ing Digit­al Infra­struc­ture; Driv­ing inclus­ive growth aims to:

  • Cre­ate a world-class digit­al system
  • Strengthen cre­ativ­ity
  • Boost com­pet­it­ive­ness
  • Sup­port long-term inclus­ive and sus­tain­able growth.

A chan­ging nation: how will Scot­land thrive in a digit­al world

This strategy, pub­lished in March 2021, sets out Scotland’s approach to ensur­ing ser­vices are designed and delivered to meet the needs of the user, to deliv­er and aid eco­nom­ic recov­ery, to meet cli­mate change tar­gets and to ensure that people in Scot­land have the skills, con­nectiv­ity and devices required in today’s digit­al climate.

The doc­u­ment aims to embrace three key oppor­tun­it­ies: design­ing and imple­ment­ing tech­no­logy in a secure, effi­cient and user centred way, real­ising the poten­tial of data to improve ser­vices, increase effi­ciency and deliv­er bet­ter out­comes, and trans­form­ing our cul­ture and the way we work through digit­al think­ing, with its emphas­is on open­ness, net­work­ing and agil­ity. It sup­ports the vis­ion (2017) that ​‘Scot­land is recog­nised through­out the world as a vibrant, inclus­ive, green­er, open and out­ward-look­ing digit­al nation¹’

The strategy aims to ensure that geo­graphy, back­ground or abil­ity is not a bar­ri­er to get­ting online and bene­fit­ing from digit­al tech­no­logy, and we cap­it­al­ise on the poten­tial of digit­al tech­no­logy to sus­tain and invig­or­ate rur­al and island com­munit­ies. This includes ensur­ing that every part of Scot­land and every com­munity with­in it can have access to good qual­ity con­nectiv­ity now and in the future.

The £25m Scot­tish 4G infill pro­gramme aims to address mobile ​‘not spots’ (areas where no mobile cov­er­age is avail­able) in remote com­munit­ies across Scot­land, from the Scot­tish Bor­ders to Shet­land and Orkney.

Des­pite tele­coms being reserved to the UK Par­lia­ment, Scot­tish Government’s £600 mil­lion invest­ment through the Reach­ing 100% (R100) pro­gramme aims to deliv­er future-proofed and resi­li­ent broad­band infra­struc­ture in some of the most rur­al areas of Scot­land, which include some areas with­in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park. The strategy high­lights the need and bene­fits in rur­al invest­ment in digit­al infra­struc­ture to Scotland’s rur­al communities.

Nation­al Park (Scot­land) Act 2000

The Nation­al Park has four dis­tinct aims as set out in The Nation­al Parks (Scot­land) Act 2000). The fourth aim is ​‘to pro­mote sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic and social devel­op­ment of the area’s com­munit­ies’. The aims are all to be pur­sued col­lect­ively. How­ever, if there is con­flict between the first aim and any of the oth­ers, great­er weight is giv­en to the first aim (as set out in Sec­tion 9(6) of the 2000 Act).

Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4

The Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 sets out the nation­al spa­tial strategy for Scot­land. Its focus on the three main policy themes of sus­tain­able, live­able and pro­duct­ive places aligns with Scotland’s aim of deliv­er­ing on the United Nations Sus­tain­able Goals.

¹ Real­ising Scotland’s full poten­tial in a digit­al world: a digit­al strategy for Scot­land (2017).

Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4, in rela­tion to infra­struc­ture and ser­vices aims to deliv­er an infra­struc­ture first approach to land use planning.

Policy 24 cov­ers Digit­al infra­struc­ture. Policy 24 sets out the cri­ter­ia upon which devel­op­ment pro­pos­als will be sup­por­ted, this includes devel­op­ment which:

  • Incor­por­ates appro­pri­ate future-proofed digit­al infrastructure.
  • Deliv­ers new digit­al ser­vices or provide tech­no­lo­gic­al improve­ments, par­tic­u­larly in areas with no or low con­nectiv­ity capacity.
  • Includes pro­pos­als which are clearly aligned to the deliv­ery of loc­al or nation­al pro­grammes for the roll-out of digit­al infrastructure.
  • Deliv­ers new con­nectiv­ity where there are bene­fits for com­munit­ies and the loc­al economy.

Policy 24 fur­ther states that devel­op­ment will only be sup­por­ted where:

  • The visu­al and amen­ity impacts have been min­im­ised through care­ful sit­ing, design, height, mater­i­als and land­scap­ing, tak­ing into account cumu­lat­ive impacts and rel­ev­ant tech­nic­al constraints.
  • It has been demon­strated that before erect­ing a new ground-based mast the pos­sib­il­ity of erect­ing anten­nas on an exist­ing build­ing, mast or oth­er struc­ture, repla­cing an exist­ing mast and / or site shar­ing has been explored.
  • There is no phys­ic­al obstruc­tion to aero­drome oper­a­tions, tech­nic­al sites or exist­ing trans­mit­ter / receiv­er facilities.

Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 has des­ig­nated the ​‘Digit­al Fibre Net­work’ as a nation­al devel­op­ment to sup­port the con­tin­ued roll-out of world class broad­band across Scot­land. Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4’s spa­tial strategy refers to this nation­al devel­op­ment as a: ​‘fun­da­ment­ally import­ant util­ity, required to sup­port devel­op­ment, com­munity well­being, equal access to goods and ser­vices, and emis­sions reduc­tion from reduced demand for travel’.

The Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan needs to sup­port the deliv­ery of digit­al infra­struc­ture in the Nation­al Park. This should include sup­port­ing improve­ments in mobile con­nectiv­ity in areas there they are gaps in con­nectiv­ity. The Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan should there­fore sup­port new appro­pri­ate, uni­ver­sal future proofed digit­al infra­struc­ture where it will bene­fit the loc­al com­munity and economy.

Scot­tish gov­ern­ment plan­ning guid­ance: digit­al telecommunications

The doc­u­ment is not plan­ning policy but may be con­sidered as a mater­i­al con­sid­er­a­tion in plan­ning applic­a­tions and appeal decisions, so needs to be con­sidered in rela­tion to

the devel­op­ment of the next Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan. In rela­tion to Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plans the guid­ance states that plan need to take into account the over­all policy approach of Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4, Policy 24.

The guid­ance states that – plan­ning author­it­ies (includ­ing Nation­al Park author­it­ies) when pre­par­ing their Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plans should ensure con­nectiv­ity ambi­tions are recog­nised in line with the Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4’s over­all policy approach for digit­al com­mu­nic­a­tions infra­struc­ture, set out in Loc­al devel­op­ment plan­ning guid­ance. Loc­al author­it­ies should take account of exist­ing and future pro­vi­sion of digit­al infra­struc­ture in devel­op­ing their spa­tial strategy. Pre­par­a­tion of the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan is a col­lab­or­at­ive activ­ity, and the com­mu­nic­a­tions industry is an import­ant stake­hold­er in this. The Evid­ence Report stage offers an oppor­tun­ity for early engage­ment par­tic­u­larly with rel­ev­ant loc­al author­ity depart­ments, oper­at­ors and pro­viders in rela­tion to pro­grammed invest­ment in digit­al with­in their area.

The guid­ance spe­cific­ally addresses rur­al and remote areas which is applic­able to the Nation­al Park.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2022

Good con­nectiv­ity is key to deliv­er­ing the out­comes in the Part­ner­ship Plan, and through its stra­tegic dia­gram, it iden­ti­fies pri­or­ity areas for digit­al con­nectiv­ity (Fig­ure 1).

While the Part­ner­ship Plan must be con­sidered as a whole, the fol­low­ing policies are of par­tic­u­lar rel­ev­ance to this topic:

Policy B5 addresses the need to sup­port under-rep­res­en­ted groups to vis­it, work and live in the Nation­al Park by address­ing any bar­ri­ers to par­ti­cip­a­tion which may include a lack of con­nectiv­ity that hinders access to essen­tial ser­vices online. Part I of Policy 5 sets out the need to improve digit­al access­ib­il­ity and deliv­er inclus­ive com­mu­nic­a­tions which include video and streamed con­tent, pub­lic­a­tions and improve­ments to the Nation­al Park Author­ity website.

Policy C1 addresses the need to enable sus­tain­able pat­terns of set­tle­ment devel­op­ment, infra­struc­ture and com­mu­nic­a­tions which includes the plan­ning and sup­port­ing improve­ments to the inform­a­tion tech­no­logy net­work. It also includes the plan­ning and

sup­port­ing improve­ments to the mobile com­mu­nic­a­tions net­work that improve access to next gen­er­a­tion tech­no­logy and min­im­ise the need for visu­ally intrus­ive infrastructure.

Ofcom Con­nec­ted Nations Scot­land Report 2023

Ofcom’s object­ive is to make com­mu­nic­a­tions work for every­one, includ­ing to pro­mote reli­able, widely avail­able, and high-qual­ity net­works. In this annu­al Con­nec­ted Nations Scot­land report, Ofcom reports and meas­ure pro­gress in the avail­ab­il­ity of broad­band and mobile ser­vices across Scot­land and the UK, includ­ing the new­est full fibre, fixed wire­less access and 5G net­works now being rolled out.

The key high­lights from the report are as follows:

  • Full fibre is avail­able to approx­im­ately 1.4 mil­lion homes in Scot­land (53%).
  • Gig­abit-cap­able broad­band is avail­able at approx­im­ately 1.9 mil­lion homes (72%).
  • Full-fibre and gig­abit-cap­able con­nectiv­ity in rur­al Scot­land has also advanced by eight per­cent­age points, to 32% and 34% of res­id­en­tial premises, respectively.
  • Super­fast broad­band (at least 30Mbit/​s) is avail­able to approx­im­ately 2.6m homes in Scot­land (95%).
  • 5G cov­er­age out­side of premises from at least one Mobile Net­work Oper­at­or has reached 88% at High Con­fid­ence level and 80% at Very High Con­fid­ence level. Indi­vidu­al Mobile Net­work Oper­at­or cov­er­age in Scot­land ranges from 39 – 70% at our High Con­fid­ence level, with a range of 25 – 60% at our Very High Con­fid­ence level.
  • 84% of Scotland’s land­mass has 4G cov­er­age from at least one Mobile Net­work Oper­at­or – up from 83% in 2022 – and 48% have cov­er­age from all four oper­at­ors (up from 46% in 2022).
  • Approx­im­ately 18,000 (0.6%) premises in Scot­land are unable to access decent broad­band (defined as provid­ing 10 Mbit/​s down­load and 1 Mbit/​s upload speeds) form a fixed or Fixed Wire­less Access ser­vice. This is down from approx­im­ately 21,000 in 2022.

Con­nec­ted Growth: Manu­al for Places – Digit­al Infrastructure

Pub­lished by the Depart­ment for Digit­al, Cul­ture, Media and Sport in 2019, the Con­nec­ted Growth manu­al addresses the need for the UK to boost its digit­al con­nectiv­ity. The doc­u­ment sets out the ambi­tious aim for the UK to be a world lead­er in 5G with most of the UK pop­u­la­tion hav­ing access to 5G by 2027. Inter­ven­tions include encour­aging plan­ning author­it­ies to adopt de min­imis pro­vi­sions with regard to small-cell mobile infra­struc­ture and work­ing with Mobile Net­work Oper­at­ors to pro­act­ively identi­fy pos­sible sites for infra­struc­ture deploy­ment / improve­ment. Nation­al Pro­gress is mon­itored through the Ofcom Con­nec­ted Nations Reports.

The broad­band Uni­ver­sal Ser­vice Obligation

The Uni­ver­sal Ser­vice Oblig­a­tion is a research brief­ing, pub­lished in 2022, presen­ted to the House of Com­mons as a UK-wide meas­ure inten­ded as a ​‘safety net’ to deliv­er broad­band to those premises that do not have access to a decent and afford­able connection.

The UK Gov­ern­ment have defined a decent con­nec­tion as one that can deliv­er 10 mega­bits per second (Mbps) down­load speed and 1 Mbps upload speed (along with oth­er defined qual­ity parameters).

Ofcom has defined an afford­able con­nec­tion as one that costs less than £45 per month (£48.90 cited in the House of Com­mons Par­lia­ment research brief­ing²). The Uni­ver­sal Ser­vice Oblig­a­tion provides a leg­al right to request a decent broad­band con­nec­tion, up to a cost threshold of £3,400 per premises.

To be eli­gible for fund­ing the apply­ing prop­erty can­not be due to be con­nec­ted by a pub­licly fun­ded roll-out scheme with­in the suc­ceed­ing 12 months.

The brief­ing paper high­lights the issues sur­round­ing the excess costs which have to be met by the applic­ant. Ofcom has stated there remains a ​“small but sig­ni­fic­ant” num­ber of premises for which the costs of build­ing a con­nec­tion are very high, mostly in remote rur­al areas.

With­in the Nation­al Park there are still a sig­ni­fic­ant num­ber of post­code areas where 75 – 100% of the premises are below the uni­ver­sal ser­vice oblig­a­tion (Fig­ure 2) mean­ing they can­not receive decent broad­band con­nec­tion. It should be noted that with­in many of the worst affected areas (Fig­ure 2) are sparsely pop­u­lated with large areas of undeveloped nat­ur­al landscape.

² House of Com­mons Lib­rary. The Uni­ver­sal Ser­vice Oblig­a­tion (USO) for Broad­band. Avail­able at: https://​com​monslib​rary​.par​lia​ment​.uk/​r​e​s​e​a​r​c​h​-​b​r​i​e​f​i​n​g​s​/​c​b​p​-8146

The broad­band Uni­ver­sal Oblig­a­tion Ser­vice is inten­ded to fill the gaps in left by oth­er pro­grammes, past and present, which include, the Bet­ter Broad­band Scheme, Super­fast Broad­band Pro­gramme and the Gig­abit broad­band vouch­er schemes.

The Digit­al Eco­nomy Act 2017 amended sec­tion 65 of the Com­mu­nic­a­tions Act 2003 and gave the Sec­ret­ary of State powers to intro­duce a broad­band Uni­ver­sal Oblig­a­tion Ser­vice through sec­ond­ary legis­la­tion. The spe­cific­a­tions for the Uni­ver­sal Oblig­a­tion Ser­vice – the Elec­tron­ic Com­mu­nic­a­tions (Broad­band) (Uni­ver­sal Ser­vice) Order 2018 (SI 2018⁄445) (The Uni­ver­sal Ser­vice Order) then came into force in 2018.

Pro­ject Gig­abit pro­gress update Septem­ber 2023

The report sets out the pro­gress since the launch of Pro­ject Gig­abit in 2021. In Scot­land the deliv­ery vehicle is the Reach­ing 100% pro­gramme (also com­monly referred to as the R100 pro­gramme). The infra­struc­ture will be provided by Open­reach and fun­ded by Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment. The Reach­ing 100% pro­gramme was a Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment com­mit­ment to provide every home and busi­ness in Scot­land with super­fast broad­band of 30 Mbps.

Reach­ing 100% Programme

The Reach­ing 100% (R100) pro­gramme in Scot­land is a key mech­an­ism for deliv­ery of the Digit­al Scot­land Strategy. The Scot­tish Gov­ern­ments com­mit­ment to deliv­er­ing super­fast broad­band cov­er­age to every home and busi­ness by 2021 was met by three deliv­ery mech­an­isms, the Reach­ing 100% pro­gramme, Reach­ing 100% Con­tracts and the Reach­ing 100% Scot­tish Broad­band Vouch­er Scheme. The Reach­ing 100% con­tracts are expec­ted to be com­pleted by 2028, delayed due to glob­al sup­ply chain issues out­with the pro­grammes control³

Across Scot­land the Reach­ing 100% pro­gramme to date (Octo­ber 2023) has con­nec­ted over 42,000 prop­er­ties to faster broad­band and dis­trib­uted over 3,500 vouch­ers through the Reach­ing 100% Scot­tish Broad­band Scheme. Dur­ing 2023⁄24 (Fin­an­cial year) the pro­ject is expec­ted to enable the lay­ing of more than 7 mil­lion meters of cable.

Altern­at­ive solutions

Sub­sid­ised sup­port for broad­band in the UK is also avail­able through The Gig­abit Broad­band Scheme. The Gig­abit Broad­band Vouch­er Scheme (GBVS) is a UK-wide sub­sidy scheme for groups of indi­vidu­als or busi­nesses based in rur­al areas with broad­band speeds less than 100 Mbit/​s. Applic­ants may be able to com­bine R100 Scot­tish Broad­band Vouch­er Scheme (SBVS) vouch­ers with an addi­tion­al con­tri­bu­tion through the Gig­abit Broad­band Vouch­er Scheme.

The Shared Rur­al Network

The Shared Rur­al Net­work is an agree­ment between the UK Gov­ern­ment and mobile industry announced in March 2020 to improve rur­al mobile cov­er­age by 2025.

The Shared Rur­al Net­work pro­gramme work­ing with the UK’s four mobile net­work oper­at­ors (EE, Three, O2 and Voda­fone) aim to:

³ https://​www​.scot​land​su​per​fast​.com/

  • Provide cov­er­age to an addi­tion­al 280,000 premises and for people in cars on an addi­tion­al 16,000km of the UK’s roads.
  • Improve geo­graph­ic cov­er­age to 79% of Areas of Nat­ur­al Beauty, up from 51%, and 74% of Nation­al Parks from 41%.

This will be delivered through upgrades to exist­ing net­works to improve mobile cov­er­age in rur­al areas. Indi­vidu­ally, each oper­at­or wis aim­ing to reach 90% geo­graph­ic cov­er­age, which will res­ult in 84% of the UK hav­ing 4G cov­er­age from all four oper­at­ors, increas­ing choice and boost­ing pro­ductiv­ity in rur­al areas.

Under the pro­gramme deliv­ery, in Scot­land, cov­er­age from all four oper­at­ors will rise to a min­im­um of 74%, up from 44%. Cov­er­age from at least one oper­at­or will increase from 81% to 91% by the end of the programme.

UK wide dead­lines set by the pro­gramme include the com­bined cov­er­age expec­ted to be delivered to 95% of the UK by 2025, with the Ofcom dead­line for deliv­ery of pub­lic fun­ded cov­er­age improve­ments in Total Not Spot Areas to end in early 2027.

Scot­tish 4G infill pro­gramme: pro­gress update

The Scot­tish Government’s Scot­tish 4G Infill Pro­gramme (S4GI) aims to deliv­er 4G infra­struc­ture and ser­vices in 55 mobile ​‘not spots’ in rur­al and island parts of Scot­land. The Scot­tish 4G Infill Pro­gramme is being delivered in part­ner­ship with WHP Tele­coms, Cell­nex UK and the Scot­tish Futures Trust.

The pro­gress update includes an update on works at Clova with improve­ments com­plete mean­ing 4G ser­vices are now avail­able from EE in the area. The Glen Clova area is par­tially covered by the Cairngorms Nation­al Park bound­ary and extends down into the Angus Loc­al Author­ity area.

Installing new masts is a lengthy pro­cess and which includes agree­ing terms with landown­ers, gain­ing plan­ning per­mis­sion and a com­mit­ment from at least one mobile net­work oper­at­or (EE

×

We want your feedback

Thank you for visiting our new website. We'd appreciate any feedback using our quick feedback form. Your thoughts make a big difference.

Thank you!

Give feedback