Environmental concerns have been raised about the rollout of mobile masts across Scotland’s most rural and remote regions.

A coalition of rural, wildlife, and conservation bodies including RSPB Scotland, the John Muir Trust, and Mountaineering Scotland, has called for an urgent review of the mobile network infrastructure rollout.

The bodies wrote to Sir Chris Bryant, minister of state for digital and data infrastructure at Westminster for an urgent review of the Total Not-Spot (TNS) portion of the Shared Rural network Programme (SRN), which aims to provide mobile connectivity to the most rural and remote parts of the UK.

Introduced under the previous Conservative administration, the programme is a collaborated between the Labour-led UK Government and mobile phone operators, seeking to achieve 95% 4G mobile phone coverage across Britain.

The rollout, however, has faced criticism for leaving many rural and remote regions underserved and behind. The Scottish Government missed their 2021 target of 100% coverage for all Scottish residences, with only 74% premises across the nation with access to gigabit broadband as of January 2024.

Now, the programme is facing environmental backlash, as the coalition claims the approach taken to achieve coverage has been “target-led”, “top-down” and is “failing to consider whether people living in rural areas need the masts.”

So far in Scotland, 260 sites have been classified as TNS – Mountaineering Scotland produced a digital map on the proposed mast areas. These, the coalition argues, have been selected mainly to provide landmass coverage and meet geographical targets of the programme, rather than prioritise coverage for communities or transport routes.

According to member groups, this has resulted in a scenario where extremely remote and ecologically fragile areas have been chose to accommodate unnecessary masts, along with related infrastructure and access roads.

The coalition argues widespread agreement among its member organisations about the impact of the rollout demonstrates the need for an urgent review and to assess how the financial resources behind the TNS element of the programme could be better used.

A number of community councils across the Highlands, as well as Scottish Land and Estates, the National Trust for Scotland, Ramblers Scotland, and Woodland Trust Scotland, also make up the broad coalition.

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“The SRN programme has been vital in improving mobile connectivity for many communities and businesses across Scotland,” Sarah-Jane Laing, chief executive of Scottish Land and Estates, said, “but it risks undermining that achievement by placing expensive masts in locations where there is no demand for them and where the infrastructure will be a blot on the landscape – potentially irreparably damaging these special, often untouched, places.

“We are urging the Government to undertake a review of the TNS programme and take a pragmatic approach rather than simply pushing forward in order to achieve ill-devised targets.”

Thomas Widrow, head of campaigns for the John Muir Trust, said: “Decisions taken in Westminster are impacting beautiful and incredibly important wild places hundreds of miles away.

“As a charity whose purpose is to protect wild places, we are alarmed that damage will be inflicted on landscapes and wildlife with no evident public or environmental benefits.

“Rural communities and outdoor enthusiasts alongside environmental organisations are speaking with one voice – we need connectivity where we live and work, not in our most fragile and remote wild places.

“The new UK Government needs to listen to this unprecedented alliance of voices and pause and review the TNS programme.

“Wild places, the biodiversity they shelter and the people they benefit deserve nothing less.”

Duncan Orr-Ewing, head of species and land management at RSPB Scotland, added: “Whilst initially well-intentioned, the SRN mast rollout has subsequently raised significant concerns, with development proposals coming forward that we believe will impact some of our most threatened species and habitats, and in places where we believe that the case for these mast developments is weak.

“We stand together with landowners, communities and other conservation eNGOs in calling on the UK Government to review the current programme, and to listen to the genuine and deepfelt views of the various stakeholders in Scotland.”