In June 2020, the Government opened a call for evidence for its review of the Access to Infrastructure Regulations. The call for evidence ran for 12 weeks, ending on 4 September 2020.

The review is to assess if there are improvements that could be made to the Regulations to further boost investment in infrastructure and encourage the use of infrastructure sharing to deploy telecoms networks. The Government’s understanding is that to date there has been limited use of the Regulations, and it is keen to understand the reasons why network providers in the UK appear not to be making more use of them.

The Government response sets out its conclusions following the call for evidence and the proposed next steps. Generally, the Government found that the Regulations are broadly appropriate, and that at present there is limited industry demand for large scale reform. However, the Government did identify some areas where some smaller amendments around timescales and enforcement powers, and some clarifications to the scope of the Regulations may improve their use. To read the Government’s response, click here.