Every year or so, I try to update readers on any planning issues that may help them put up antennas, or otherwise keep what they've put up. Accordingly, none of the following is advice, but merely an account of experience that may help you consider aspects relating to your own situation.
A recent discussion with the RSGB's planning adviser, John Mattocks - himself a retired Planning Inspector - highlighted a feature of antennas that you may want to keep in mind if you either apply for planning, or apply for a certificate of lawfulness for what you have after a period of four years where you did not apply in the first place (which makes the installation lawful, from a planning perspective (i.e. not from a listed building, etc. perspective, which is covered by other legislation and may affect your installation in addition to planning matters.))
Let's review a few important aspects before we get to that discussion:
(1) Antennas and their associated structures become immune from enforcement, and therefore fully lawful for planning purposes, four years (no, it is not ten years) after the installation was "substantially completed". A reference to the relevant legislation is provided at the end of this post.
So, in this situation, if someone tries to get under your skin, saying that you put up your antennas without planning, suggesting you did something wrong and that they can 'get you for it', you categorically did not! It is not a criminal or other offence to develop your land without applying for or getting planning consent. Only if and when your council comes to challenge you through an Enforcement Notice, and you fail to comply with that Notice and/or fail to comply with an Appeal that goes against you, do you come into conflict with the law. This, of course, is very different from saying you should develop your land without consent! It all depends on where you live, and what the people around you, if any, are like.
(2) It goes without saying that, in order to be certain of successfully challenging any planning officer or Enforcement Notice, you should take very many photographs of your installation from the very first day you put things up. Towers need large amounts of concrete, so keep your receipt from the ready-mix supplier as independent evidence. Please take photos of your antennas in their environmental context so that changes to features such as your cars, kids, hedges, etc, can back up the claim of a passage of time. Because you also want to defeat any claim that your antennas were not always up, you should take photos regularly for four years. Every day might be overkill, although easily possible with today's mobile devices and digicams, but at least every week might be appropriate. It has been held that a period of 18 days where structures were not in place is enough to defeat a claim of permanence. So don't leave too much of a gap between photos!
(3) You are in no way legally obliged to apply for a Certificate of Lawfulness after the exemption from enforcement period has been reached. Cost, though modest, is one reason why you wouldn't want to. Stirring up needless bureaucracy is another, especially if your evidence for having antennas up for four years or more is a little weak. If your evidence is strong, then you may wish to apply for a CoL, though the recent personal advice from the RSGB to me is to 'let sleeping dogs lie'.
(4) A council that decides your antennas are not immune, but cause insufficient harm for them to bother pursuing it to an Enforcement Notice, will send you a letter that tells you this. Councils do take a moment to assess harm, sometimes according to a set of fixed criteria, and are directed by central government to try and negotiate with you before running to their lawyers (because Courts and Appeals officers dislike those who don't try to settle their differences informally first). Indeed, the Planning Inspectorate advises that negotiations to settle matters informally continue even during the appeal process.
In effect, the Authority that chooses not to pursue matters will then be telling you that they are acting on their discretion not to use their powers of enforcement. So you can, in practice, consider the installation as immune from enforcement (the council could not reasonably go back on their published intention not to enforce at a later stage (so keep all letters/emails safely!)
Councils also tend to try and intimidate you by claiming that selling your house may become difficult owing to a lack of consent. This is utter rubbish that you should ignore with confidence. If a potential buyer's solicitor flags lack of consent or Certificate of Lawfulness as a question for you as a vendor to answer, simply advise them that your solicitor will arrange an indemnity insurance. This typically costs about £50 - which is very much cheaper and simpler than either a full planning application or CoL. I have never known an indemnity insurance offer not to satisfy a buyer's solicitor, even when it involved much more substantial aspects of a property than antennas. Indemnities are, in fact, completely standard fare in property transactions. None of the above is advice, because things vary according to circumstances. Seek you own legal advice.
(5) Having a tower and antenna on a trailer does not make you immune from enforcement. If you use it only occasionally, it may be treated as a non-fixed structure and nobody will bother you further. But there is a test case that found a trailer-mounted antenna system was "operational development", and had to be dismantled.
(6) If you live in a high-density housing setting, then it is exceptionally unlikely that a tower or similar structure will reach the four year (or even four week!) point before someone logs in to an anonymous reporting app that many councils now operate. If, however, you live in a more remote spot, then you probably have a much greater chance of evading enforcement, provided it is not too prominent from roads, paths and neighbouring properties.
Indeed, such remoteness, if you are lucky enough to enjoy it, ought to be, of itself, a strong argument against the basic 'mischief' of unconsented structures - that there is nobody around to suffer the 'loss of amenity' local authorities use as their very basis for argument. But beware any surrounding roads or footpaths used by the public, which make you, in effect, less remote.
Now, the important point that John Mattocks discussed with me is: should you apply for planning permission for a tower plus the antennas atop it, or should you apply for the tower and antennas separately?
This sounds like splitting hairs. But, consider where you have, say, a loop fed Yagi that is grounded to the tower. Does that make the tower part of the antenna itself? How about where you attach a half sloper for a lower band, where the 'missing half' of the radiator is indisputably the tower itself.
OK, a council isn't likely to realise, know about, or understand such technicalities of where the electrons are flowing. They only care about appearances. But a persistent planning officer may delve into things and seek further advice when confronted with potential defeat when you smile and claim the four-year-rule.
The outcome of the discussion was that it is probably best to split your system into tower and antennas, and make separate applications (or apply for separate Certificates of Lawfulness) for each. This avoids the potential problems you may face if you change antennas in future, where the entire (perceived as single) tower-plus-antenna structure, rather than just the antenna itself, could then be claimed to have been changed - and therefore the whole damn thing - including the tower you thought was in the clear - needing a new application.
Some of these points are quite involved and perhaps unlikely to occur. And in these days of severe budget cuts, councils are doing everything they can to cut out needless paperwork and legal costs, so they are likely to be much less active in the community than during any time in living memory. But with so many neighbours from hell these days, TV programmes that portray hams as bad neighbours themselves, and councils who often seem to seek new ways to punish the public, it is always best to fight your corner comprehensively.
You can find the Town and Country Planning Act here.
The four year rule section is s171b(1), found here.
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