Mr. Ted Fletcherasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what proposals he has for control of development carried out by the Post Office.
§ Mr. Graham PageThe Post Office has inherited the G.P.O.'s general powers to provide overhead or underground telephone and telegraph cables and apparatus without planning control; but at present an application for planning permission is required for any other kind of development. Under the Post Office Act, 1969, the Post Office is deemed to be a statutory undertaker for the purposes of the planning Acts. Following consultations with the local authority associations and other interested bodies, the Government intend in due course to lay before Parliament an order designed to give the Post Office a general permission to carry out small, scale developments such as installing telephone kiosks, posting boxes and self-service postal machines, to use land temporarily in case of emergency and to carry out limited development on operational land. Operational land will be defined in regulations shortly to be laid before Parliament.