The Electronic Communications Code

The Electronic Communications Code is the matrix of legal rights given to, and liabilities imposed upon, telecommunications companies in order to allow them to install and maintain all forms of electronic communications networks on land.  This area of law plays to Landmark’s core strengths in real estate law and in compulsory purchase law, together with its great experience in promoting infrastructure projects.

Landmark’s property team had extensive experience of all aspects of the previous version of the Code, contained in the Telecommunications Act 1984 and is leading the way under the new Code, enacted in the Digital Economy Act 2017.

Highlights of Landmark’s experience include:

• Appearances in every case on the 1984 Code in England and Wales reported in the last 15 years, including the only Court of Appeal decision on the Code in that period;
• Barristers were deeply involved in the drafting of the new 2017 Code, including giving advice to the Law Commission on the state of the existing law, advising HM Government on its proposals for reform of the 1984 Code and assisting with the drafting of lobbying documents on behalf of operators and site providers;
• Advising a number of new entrants into the electronic communications market, seeking to take advantage of the 2017 Code to become operators or the providers of telecommunications infrastructure networks.

Landmark regularly acts for landowners, operators of electronic communications networks (both mobile telephone operators and fixed-line operators) and infrastructure providers. Landmark’s property team is pleased to accept licensed access instructions from surveyors acting for either landowners or operators.

Landmark’s town and country planning team also has extensive experience in dealing with issues surrounding the erection and retention of telecommunications masts.