PHONE MASTS IN THE WILDERNESS

Freedom of Information requests are apparently being evaded in attempts to suppress a true picture of the scale of these proposals. Our Edinburgh correspondent has drawn attention to an article in The National (Scotland) paper for 18th February which lifted the curtain a little bit on the surreptitious proposals to build phone masts, access roads, diesel generators etc in some of Scotland’s most cherished wilderness areas (where practically nobody actually lives).
There are plans for 274 such masts, for which the government is aiming to pay the telecomms companies about £500 million. (Why ??)

The report says that various agencies have tried to avoid giving out this information. It will concern anyone interested in wild places and the threat to erode their meaning. The National itself does not appear to be on-line but after reading a scanned copy of the article, I also found it at

https://www.pressreader.com/uk/the-national-scotland/20240218/281809993819888

ANDREW