CityFibre lodged seven notices on 1 September: four 9m wooden poles and three cabinets, two of them in Cottenham's conservation area. The council cannot refuse.
CityFibre has told South Cambridgeshire District Council it intends to put up four 9-metre wooden poles and three street cabinets in Cottenham. Seven separate notices were received and validated on Tuesday 1 September 2026. (Greater Cambridge planning register, weekly list for the week beginning 31 August 2026)
The council has until Monday 28 September to respond. It cannot refuse any of them.
That is because these are not planning applications. They are notices under Regulation 5 of the Electronic Communications Code (Conditions and Restrictions) Regulations 2003, which lets a telecoms operator install cabinets and similar apparatus without planning permission, provided it gives the planning authority one calendar month’s written notice first. (Regulation 5, legislation.gov.uk)
What is proposed, and where
| Reference | What the register records | Where |
|---|---|---|
| 26/03315/TELNOT | Electronic communications apparatus, SN cabinet | 329 High Street, CB24 8TX |
| 26/03318/TELNOT | Electronic communications apparatus | 329 High Street, CB24 8TX |
| 26/03316/TELNOT | Electronic communications apparatus, SN cabinet | 10 Rampton Road, CB24 8UL |
| 26/03317/TELNOT | 1no 9m light wooden pole, extender pole | 42 Dunstal Field, CB24 8UH |
| 26/03319/TELNOT | 1no 9m light wooden pole, extender pole | 40 Dunstal Field, CB24 8UH |
| 26/03321/TELNOT | 1no 9m light wooden pole, extender pole | 32 Dunstal Field, CB24 8UH |
| 26/03320/TELNOT | 1no 9m light wooden pole, extender pole | 23 Ellis Close, CB24 8UN |
Three of the four poles would stand in one short residential street. Dunstal Field would get poles outside numbers 32, 40 and 42.
The drawings filed with the notices give the siting detail. The poles are the “9M LIGHT” type and would go in the footpath, which the drawing for 42 Dunstal Field measures at 1.5 metres wide. The cabinets would go in the verge: 4 metres of verge outside 329 High Street, 1.5 metres outside 10 Rampton Road. All seven carry the same CityFibre project reference, WLM-1-PN585. (drawings filed with 26/03317/TELNOT)
Two cabinets in the conservation area
The High Street cabinets would sit inside the Cottenham Conservation Area, which was designated on 9 November 1989 and covers the historic core of the village. The government’s planning data service maps the CB24 8TX postcode inside the boundary. The Rampton Road, Dunstal Field and Ellis Close locations all fall outside it. (Cottenham Conservation Area, planning.data.gov.uk)
The council spotted that before the notices arrived. On 25 August a senior planning officer at Greater Cambridge Shared Planning, who describes himself in the email as “the primary contact for telecoms related development”, wrote to CityFibre: “You submitted a contact us form regarding cabinets to be installed in a conservation area. Please can you provide further details so that we can consider applicable advice.”
CityFibre’s formal answer came a week later, on 1 September. Its planner attached the Regulation 5 notice and set out the position plainly:
Should your authority wish to propose any conditions in respect of this installation, we kindly request that these be submitted in writing within one calendar month of receipt of this notice. Please note that we are not obliged to comply with any conditions that are deemed unreasonable in all the circumstances.
That is not a company being awkward. It is the regulation. Regulation 5(3) says the planning authority may give written notice of conditions within one calendar month, “but he is not obliged to comply with those conditions to the extent that they are unreasonable in all the circumstances”. The council’s leverage is limited to conditions it can defend as reasonable.
Nobody has been consulted
As of 2 September the register records Total Consulted: 0 and no comments on any of the seven notices. There is no statutory neighbour consultation for a Regulation 5 notice, and no site notices go up. Every notice is nonetheless flagged on the portal as open for comments, and each is due for determination on Monday 28 September 2026.
Cottenham Parish Council meets twice a month for planning, and its website carried nothing about the fibre build as of 2 September. Its most recent news item, posted on 20 August, concerns road resurfacing in the village. (Cottenham Parish Council)
What it means for you
- If you live on Dunstal Field, Ellis Close, Rampton Road or the High Street near number 329, this is the only public notice you are likely to get before the equipment appears.
- Comments go to Greater Cambridge Shared Planning through the reference links in the table above. The useful ones are about siting: pavement width, sight lines, whether a pole blocks a drive or a crossing point, and the conservation area.
- Make them before Monday 28 September. After that the council’s window to give written notice of conditions has passed.
- The council can ask CityFibre to move or change things. It cannot stop the build, and CityFibre can decline any condition it considers unreasonable.
- CityFibre has not published a Cottenham build date. Regulation 5 requires one calendar month’s notice before installation, so the earliest work could begin is 1 October.
Every reference above links to the council’s own record, so you can check it yourself. We will follow the seven notices to 28 September and report what conditions, if any, the council sets.
More on planning across the district on our South Cambridgeshire planning news page, and current disruption on the roadworks and travel page.
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