Constituents have rightly complained to me about the mess of mobile phone company boxes (six plus a mobile phone mast!) on City Road near the Saggar Street junction. Hardly sightly - and so I contacted the planning team at the council to find out the position in relation to planning approvals.
Here is the initial response from the City Council :
"Planning application ref: 03/00441/FUL was granted permission for the erection of a monopole with shrouded antennas and 2 no equipment cabinets. It would appear that at some stage the monopole has been replaced and an additional 4 cabinets installed under permitted development rights as defined by Class 67 of the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (Scotland) Order 1992 as amended 2014.
Class 67 allows for the erection of replacement masts with an increase in height of up to 5m and the erection of ground based equipment with a volume of not more than 90 cubic metres.
Although I may not be able to have the cabinets removed I shall contact the operator to request that any redundant cabinets are removed and that the white cabinets are painted green to match the existing."
I am pleased to say I have since been advised by the council :
"The telecommunications operator at City Road has confirmed that one of the existing equipment cabinets is to be recovered from site and the two white cabinets are to be painted green to match the other cabinets."
It is still less than perfect but the removal of a box and the painting of the white ones to match the rest will improve things. I do feel telecommunications and other utility companies should have more respect for the aesthetics of local communities before installing these boxes in an unsympathetic way.