Telecoms mast appeal fails over SANG quality and protected woodland

A telecoms mast appeal has failed after an Inspector found that a proposed lattice tower would damage the quality of land being used as ecological mitigation for the Thames Basin Heaths Special Protection Area.

The telecoms mast appeal was dismissed on 2nd October 2026. The Part 16 prior approval appeal concerned West Court Land at Finchampstead, Wokingham, where Airwave Solutions wanted to install a slimline lattice mast with aerials, transmission dishes, a GPS aerial and radio equipment housing.

Inspector A Tucker accepted the national importance of maintaining and improving communications networks. But the site sat within protected woodland forming part of a Suitable Alternative Natural Greenspace, or SANG, and the evidence did not persuade the Inspector that less harmful alternative sites had been properly ruled out.

Why the SANG mattered more than ordinary open space

The mast was proposed at the edge of historic parkland associated with West Court, within a mature linear woodland belt. The surroundings retained a strongly rural character despite recent housing nearby.

That woodland also formed part of the West Court SANG. SANGs around the Thames Basin Heaths are intended to provide attractive alternative places for recreation so that additional residents generated by development are less likely to visit the protected heathland.

The Inspector treated that function as important to the Part 16 siting exercise. Natural England guidance emphasises that a SANG should feel semi-natural and contain little artificial intrusion. Here, the upper part of the lattice tower would project above the tree canopy and be widely visible across the open parkland.

The mast would therefore do more than introduce an engineered structure into attractive open space. The Inspector described the SANG as a “strategic ecological mitigation asset” and found that erosion of its attractiveness and tranquillity could reduce its effectiveness in diverting recreational pressure from the SPA.

That meant the effect attracted greater weight than it would have done had West Court simply been an ordinary area of public open space.

The distinction is worth noting. Nothing in the decision says that telecoms development is automatically excluded from a SANG. The problem was that this particular siting would undermine characteristics which helped the SANG perform its mitigation role.

The Part 16 limits in this telecoms mast appeal

The appeal was made under GPDO Schedule 2, Part 16, Class A.

The Inspector was explicit that the principle of telecoms development was established by the GPDO. The prior approval exercise was confined to siting and appearance, taking representations into account.

Wokingham had referred to development plan policies in its refusal. The Inspector did not treat those policies as an independent gateway which the development had to pass. Instead, the Inspector had regard to the development plan and the National Planning Policy Framework only so far as they informed the siting and appearance questions properly before the Inspector.

That is an important discipline in permitted development cases. A local planning authority cannot quietly convert a tightly defined prior approval exercise into a full planning application.

But a narrow prior approval test does not necessarily mean a narrow evidence base. Where tree impacts, landscape character or the functioning of mitigation land affect whether a particular siting is acceptable, they can still be central to the decision.

Protected woodland could not simply be dealt with later

The telecoms mast appeal also turned on the woodland Tree Preservation Order covering the proposed installation site.

The appellant had not provided enough information for the Inspector to understand the full effects on the protected woodland. The gaps included the extent of any tree loss, impacts on retained roots and whether the installation might create future pressure for tree works to keep the equipment operational.

Even the apparently surface-mounted parts of the scheme caused concern. The lattice mast was to sit on substantial concrete blocks. The Inspector considered that their weight could compact soil, reduce oxygen availability, impair water infiltration and drainage, restrict root growth and damage existing roots.

Two proposed ducts were also likely to require excavation.

Because the TPO protected the woodland as a whole, there was a further issue. Occupying part of it permanently with telecoms equipment could sterilise an area which might otherwise regenerate naturally and could fragment the narrow woodland belt.

The Inspector rejected the idea that these questions could simply be left to a later application for consent to undertake works to protected trees. The Inspector considered that understanding the likely impacts was necessary to decide whether the mast’s siting and appearance were acceptable in the first place.

The highway objection did not survive the appeal

Not every council concern succeeded.

Wokingham had also raised highway safety, including the lack of detailed construction access, delivery and manoeuvring information.

The Inspector found the proposal comparatively modest. The road appeared wide enough to accommodate the works with traffic management if necessary, and the Inspector was not persuaded that a swept-path analysis or forward-gear access arrangement was required.

Once built, visits to the installation were expected to be occasional and a proposed parking bay could be used safely.

So this telecoms mast appeal did not fail because every objection stacked up. Highway safety was found acceptable. The decisive problems were the landscape and woodland effects combined with the weakness of the alternative-site case.

Alternative sites became a second major weakness

The alternative-site evidence is the other part of this telecoms mast appeal that applicants should read closely.

Current national policy gives substantial weight to maintaining and improving network coverage, capacity, reliability and resilience. It also expects new telecoms sites to be kept to a minimum and asks applicants to explore existing buildings, masts and structures where possible.

The appellant submitted a list of alternative sites, but the Inspector found several of the reasons for discounting them unconvincing.

At Park Farm, underground services were cited as a constraint even though the proposed installation was largely surface mounted. Park Farm would place the apparatus outside the TPO and SANG boundaries. Another site immediately south of the appeal site, across the road, also appeared to offer potential.

Some alternatives were rejected because landowners were unwilling. The Inspector accepted that this was a genuine constraint, but did not regard it as necessarily insurmountable.

The existing Church Farm site was also discussed. The proposal had been described as a replacement mast, but the apparatus it would replace was around one kilometre away. The Inspector therefore regarded West Court as better understood as a new installation.

The appellant then weakened its own case further by indicating that it was working towards another possible solution. With no detail showing why that option would fail, the Inspector was not satisfied that less harmful alternatives had been thoroughly explored.

Telecoms policy carries substantial weight, not automatic approval

The Inspector applied the revised NPPF published on 17th August 2026. Its current communications policies are important here.

Policy CO1 says substantial weight should be given to the benefits of maintaining or improving network coverage, capacity, reliability and resilience. It also requires proposals to minimise visual impact so far as practical, taking operational requirements into account.

Policy CO2 specifically applies its supporting-information expectations to prior approval applications under the GPDO. Where a new site is proposed, applicants should provide evidence that the number of new sites has been kept to a minimum and that opportunities to use existing structures have been explored.

In this telecoms mast appeal, the Inspector acknowledged the compelling reasons advanced for the installation and the service it would provide. The Inspector also recognised that the GPDO gives in-principle approval to qualifying telecommunications development.

That did not amount to a trump card.

Without clear and persuasive evidence showing that less harmful alternatives had been properly exhausted, the substantial policy weight supporting better connectivity did not overcome the significant effects identified at West Court.

What the telecoms mast appeal means in practice

For me, the useful lesson is that Part 16 applicants need to treat the siting case as a piece of evidence, not a paragraph of assertion.

If the chosen location affects a SANG, protected woodland or another sensitive site, the application should explain why that particular location is genuinely necessary and what realistic alternatives have been tested.

It is also worth separating matters that are genuinely within the prior approval remit from those that are not. In this appeal, development plan policy did not create a new test. Highway concerns were rejected. But the SANG, woodland and alternative-site evidence all bore directly on whether the proposed siting and appearance were acceptable.

The decision also gives a useful contrast with Planning Geek’s recent Fulbourn 5G mast appeal, where a 20m mast succeeded despite heritage concerns. Part 16 outcomes remain highly site-specific, and the quality of the evidence explaining why a particular location has been selected can be just as important as the engineering need for the equipment.

The appeal decision for 6011060 is hosted locally on Planning Geek. The wider rules for electronic communications permitted development are set out in Planning Geek’s Part 16 communications guide.