Planned Mast Upgrade Anstey LE7 7BQ (Charnwood Council)

[Vegas88]

Hoping a Community Member can shed some light on an upcoming mast upgrade, planning submitted and approved in Jan/Feb 2026.

The site is located at Anstey FC, Cropston Rd, Anstey, Leicestershire. Happy to share the planning Application if posting Links is within the Forum rules? I believe this is an EE/3 Shared Site.

Hoping this upgrade will improve indoor coverage locally.

Thanks in advance.

[cje85]

Posting the link is fine. I've had a look on https://planningexplorer.charnwood.gov.uk/Assure/ES/Presentation/Planning/OnLinePlanning/OnlinePlann... but not been able to find the application. 

[Vegas88]

Application is available here:
https://planningexplorer.charnwood.gov.uk/Assure/ES/Presentation/Planning/OnlinePlanning/OnlinePlann...

(See 'Documents' tab for details).

[bristolian]

The "existing" and "proposed" antenna schematics are normally in the detailed design rather than the planning documents, it's these that would show the existing & planned technologies to answer the query comprehensively.

The site is currently dual-carrier B3 (1800Mhz), single-carrier B1 (2100Mhz) & B20 (800Mhz) for 4G, and N1 (2100Mhz) for 5G, the application includes an antenna swap and addition of NR700 (5G low-band alongside the existing 4G)

If NR700 is added, this should improve 5G indoor coverage locally, which may currently be falling back on 4G800 in some cases. The 1800Mhz layers seem to have a good local footprint.

[Vegas88]

Thanks @bristolian appreciate the input.

With the application approved in January, would it be right to assume the upgrade would be happening sooner rather than later, or is that wishful thinking?

I'm based in an office approx. 800 metres from the site with little in-between the physical mast and the office (other than trees), generally 1 bar coverage on a mix of 4g / 5g indoors with only slightly better coverage outdoors (iPhone 17 Pro), calls often break-up or the caller complains of a bad line. I read in the application that 'EE & H3G 3G 2100 have been sunset', I'm assuming this means switched off in Layman's terms?

[bristolian]

Planning consent is one of several dependencies that need to be in-place, before build works can be scheduled, another one is potential road closures and/or traffic management. There isn't any hard or fast rule for these things.

3G sunset does indeed refer to 3G switchoff, it was the start of the process that enabled use of 2100Mhz for 4G & 5G services.