A 20 metre Fulbourn 5G mast at Capital Park has been allowed on appeal after an Inspector found that its carefully chosen car-park position kept the effect on the adjoining conservation area relatively modest.
Inspector David Reed allowed appeal 6007424 on 30th September 2026. Cornerstone Telecommunications Infrastructure Ltd had sought prior approval for a 20 metre monopole supporting six antennas and a 0.3 metre dish, together with two equipment cabinets, a meter cabinet and associated works.
South Cambridgeshire District Council had refused the prior approval application in January. The appeal turned on siting and appearance, particularly the relationship with the Fulbourn Hospital Conservation Area and whether less harmful alternative locations were genuinely available.
The decision is useful because it does not treat better digital connectivity as a trump card. The Inspector accepted that the mast would cause some character and heritage harm, then examined how far the particular siting, existing tree cover and operational constraints reduced that harm before carrying out the final balance.
Car-park siting was central to the Fulbourn 5G mast heritage case
The appeal site was at the eastern end of the CPC4 car park at Capital Park, just outside the boundary of the Fulbourn Hospital Conservation Area.
The conservation area contains the former County Asylum dating from the 1850s and later hospital buildings within a heavily treed parkland setting. That setting made the height and visibility of a new mast an obvious concern.
The chosen position mattered. Trees of up to about 15 metres stood close to the site on three sides. The Inspector found that the clearest views of the mast and cabinets would be from the car park and neighbouring office rather than from a public viewpoint or from within the conservation area.
From Fulbourn Old Drift and the bus lane running through Capital Park, the tree belt would screen a large part of the structure. Reed said the same trees would screen views from “most of the CA”, helping to minimise the effect on its character and appearance.
The Fulbourn 5G mast would still rise about five metres above the trees. The Inspector did not pretend otherwise.
Panoramic evidence taken at 15 metres, 17.5 metres and 20 metres showed where the top would remain visible. There would be longer views from surrounding farmland and roads, medium-distance views from newer housing to the east and some views from upper floors of Victoria House, the original asylum buildings and a non-designated heritage asset.
Even so, the Inspector considered the mast would be hard to perceive in many of those views and that intervening trees would often leave only the upper part visible.
Why the operator’s 5G search area mattered
For the Fulbourn 5G mast, the operational evidence was important to the appeal.
Existing 2G to 4G services were being provided from a shared 12.5 metre monopole beside Fulbourn Old Drift. According to the decision, that structure could not be upgraded to carry the equipment required for the 5G network.
A taller and bulkier multi-head arrangement would have been needed, and there was not enough space at the existing site. The operator therefore needed a new mast nearby to serve the same cell.
That explains why the search area was relatively small. It was centred on the Capital Park car park and included the office building to the west and a short section of Fulbourn Old Drift.
The Council did not dispute the need for a new site within that operational area. It also agreed that a rooftop stub mast on the two-storey office building would not be acceptable.
The Inspector described the proposed monopole as the “simplest suitable design” and the minimum height needed to avoid interference and deliver the required performance.
South Cambridgeshire suggested two locations north of the office building which it considered less intrusive. One fell outside the operator’s search area. The other could not practicably be used because of a gas-pipe easement.
That does not mean an operator can simply draw a tight search area and dismiss every alternative beyond it.
The practical lesson is that the operational geography needs to be evidenced. Where an alternative is said to be unavailable, the reason should be specific and capable of being checked. Here the same-cell requirement, the existing network position and the gas easement gave the Inspector concrete reasons rather than a bare assertion that other sites had been considered.
Planning Geek’s current Part 16 Class A guidance explains the wider permitted development framework for electronic communications code operators.
Earlier refused masts were materially different
The appeal also dealt with two earlier refusals at Capital Park.
Those proposals, references 23/00090/PRIOR and 24/03054/PRIOR, had also involved 20 metre telecommunications poles. But they were positioned on the grass verge beside the bus lane within the conservation area itself.
That made them more exposed both within Capital Park and from the junction with Fulbourn Old Drift.
The latest Fulbourn 5G mast scheme was moved into the car park, outside the conservation area, with the surrounding tree belt doing much more of the visual work.
That distinction mattered more than the shared 20 metre height.
Reed therefore treated the present proposal as materially different from those earlier refused schemes. A separate 2020 telecommunications proposal at Oslars Way was also in a different residential setting further east in Fulbourn and did not provide a close comparison.
For applicants and councils, that is an important reminder that a previous refusal is not automatically decisive where the siting and visual context have materially changed.
Part 16 still required a site-specific heritage assessment
The current Part 16 Class A rules permit qualifying development by electronic communications code operators, but a new mast on unprotected land remains subject to the prior approval procedure for siting and appearance.
The current headline height limit for a new ground-based mast on unprotected land is 30 metres. On article 2(3) land or a highway it is 25 metres. Those higher limits do not remove the prior approval requirement for a new mast, nor do they remove the other conditions within Class A.
There is also a specific condition dealing with development visible from protected land and heritage sites. The siting and appearance must minimise the visual impact so far as practicable, taking account of the nature and purposes of the protected site.
That was directly relevant to the Fulbourn 5G mast immediately beside a conservation area, even though the appeal site itself lay outside its boundary.
The Inspector ultimately found that the visual effect on the wider area and the heritage effect on the conservation area would be relatively modest.
He concluded that the mast “would only detract in a limited way” from the surrounding area and conservation area.
Those effects were then weighed against the economic and social benefits of improved digital infrastructure, which government policy strongly supports. In this case Reed found the benefits substantially outweighed the identified harm.
The appeal was therefore allowed, subject to the approved plans and a five-year commencement condition.
What practitioners can take from the Fulbourn 5G mast appeal
The strongest point from the Fulbourn 5G mast appeal is not that telecommunications infrastructure will beat heritage objections.
It is that evidence about siting can change the planning balance.
A successful Part 16 case should identify why the operator needs equipment in a particular cell, show how the search area has been derived, record realistic alternatives and explain any physical or operational constraint that prevents them being used.
Visual evidence should then do more than show that a mast is tall. It should demonstrate where it will actually be seen, what screening exists, which heritage views matter and whether an alternative location would genuinely reduce harm without undermining the network requirement.
That is what separated the Capital Park scheme from the earlier refusals.
The 20 metre height had not changed. The relationship with the conservation area had.
By moving the mast out of the designated area and into a screened car-park position, the operator reduced the number and quality of sensitive views. The remaining harm was accepted rather than ignored, but the Inspector found it limited enough for the digital infrastructure benefits to carry greater weight on the facts of this site.
That makes appeal 6007424 a useful Part 16 example for both applicants and local planning authorities. Alternatives matter, heritage matters and network need matters, but each has to be tested against the actual location rather than treated as an abstract policy slogan.
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