06 Jun 2016

ESMCP: National Parks England and the Home Office sign Joint Accord

National Parks England and the Home Office have signed a joint accord that aims to support the rollout of the Emergency Services Mobile Communications Programme (ESMCP) in National Parks, protect the Parks' special qualities by minimising any adverse environmental impacts from the programme and support close working between the two organisations to achieve these aims.

The Joint Accord (dated 25 May) can be seen here. It states that both parties seek to "collaborate in the roll-out of the [ESMCP] programme so that users, visitors and those residents living in our National Parks will benefit from the Emergency Services Network and any commercial mobile services which result".

As part of a list of the measures that will be taken to achieve the Joint Accord's main objectives, it states that: "Options to minimise adverse landscape effects in National Parks should include consideration of mast-sharing, site-sharing and any other technical advances where this would provide the required coverage and represent an acceptable environmental solution."

The importance of the Joint Accord to the overall success of the ESMCP project can be gauged by the fact that English National Parks cover almost 10 per cent of the country. The text of the agreement also notes that: "The benefits of modern communications technology are likely to be greater in National Parks than other rural locations because of their high volume of tourists, (approximately 90 million visitors per annum in England) in addition to the needs of their resident population."