Vital Highland Broadband Service Closes
There are many examples across Scotland where landowners large and small are continuing to frustrate the ambitions of individuals, businesses and social enterprises through the exercise of the fundamental monopoly control of land.
In short, if you own land and someone else wants to use it, you have the power of veto. The only general exceptions are statutory undertakings (gas, electricity, water) and local authorities and other public bodies who have powers of compulsory purchase.
The problems can range from a ransom being demanded for a servitude across land to provide access to to a development site to frustrating access to land through unreasonable demands in leases.
Last week I blogged about the problems facing the Isle of Skye Ferry CIC due to a lease of the ferry rights and landing slip that endures for 30 years with no break clauses, demands the tenant maintain the slips, and incorporates an upwards only rent review regardless of the financial performance of the tenant.
This lease was by definition not entered into by parties with equal power since one had monopoly private control of a public transportation right required by the community company to operate the ferry.
This blog notes another example of a community enterprise which is now being wound up due to similar problems.
CMNet is a social enterprise operating across Stomeferry and Achmore in Wester Ross. it was established in 2013 to provide broadband services to residents across a number of communities where there was a monopoly supply by BT that performed poorly. To their credit the members and Directors have built a successful business that remains the only provider of Next Generation broadband speeds to all households and businesses at a reasonable cost.
As with all such services, fixed equipment needs to be repaired, upgraded and replaced as the service grows and technology develops. Since the beginning, CMNet had secured vital across to a prominent local hill upon which was installed equipment and cabling including 700 metres of power cable.
A new landowner took over the land in the summer of 2025. [1] This led to the new owner approaching CMnet to renegotiate the lease in November 2025. Attempts were made to organise meetings and satisfy demands for information over the following months but by June 2026, no progress had been made.
The new owner was told in February 2026 that CMNet’s operations on the land were being suspended due to the uncertainty over the future. CMNet asked him for details of any revised proposals for the lease and for any revised rent demands. This was promised by June 2025 but never materialised.
By July 2026, it was by now over 11 months since the new landlord first raised the issue of a revision of the lease but CMNet had received no indication of what he wanted other than that he was unhappy to continue with the existing arrangement.
With outstanding maintenance required over a link that carried over half of CMNet’s subscriber traffic, the risks of failure were high. Directors were not prepared to “put in the considerable effort required to address the preventative maintenance items with no agreement for the use of the land”. Existing 60 GHz radios also would need to be upgraded. The longer preventative maintenance is suspended, the higher the risk is of failure that would result in urgent unplanned and un-budgeted maintenance.
Subscribers needed to be given three months notice to find an alternative ISP and so a decision had to be made well before winter.
At their July meeting, the Directors took a unanimous decision to close CMNet and end 12 years of successful community radio broadband services.
The frustration is set out in the letter below that appeared in the West Highland free Press on 14 August 2026.
There are no means in law for individuals or businesses being held to ransom over the delivery of essential services to appeal or seek judicial determination of essential lease agreements. Instead, they are left to appeal to popular opinion, lobby politicians, sign petitions and all sorts of other demanding and ultimately futile work to resolve questions that land reform legislation should have sorted out decades ago.
NOTES
[1] According to the Land Register the transfer of ownership has not in fact taken place but I presume that it is still being organised.
Have we got a Scottish Government ?..or is it just a mirage..it’s there but you never get to reach it. Does this mythical Scottish Government know it’s there to watch over Scotland her nation’s interests.
So the usual question…where is our government in all this….
For OUR Scotland and her cheated weans.
Sadly Catherine it doesn’t really function outside of the central belt! As the Highland crofter, giving evidence to the Napier commission around 1892, said “In London they ignore us, in Edinburgh they hate us”, Never a truer word in 2026 as the Highlands are being industrialised with windfarms and pylons and not a peep out of OUR SNP government in Edinburgh.
Thank you for your response AJ. Ma granny came frae the highlands and spoke only beautiful Gaelic ..but ye ken she wis Scottish an’ any moron who ignores our beautiful highlands and the Scots who live there is a quisling .Whit a’ wid dae tae any who trash our Scots be they from the border … up tae the Orkneys….wid be the ultimate punishment….send them tae dear auld Blighty..forever! Plenty descendants of the highlanders who came to Glesga are still here and support our fellow Scots wherever they live in our beautiful country…not the white trash from over our border.
For OUR Scotland and her weans.
Who is the landowner?
You mentioned compulsory purchase: could that be the answer?
Probably not as such powers are only available to statutory undertakings (the big telecoms companies). Anyway it is too late. CMNet cannot wait.
Would that mean the Scottish government simply has to licence an organisation as a statutory undertaker in order to clear the way?
There must be a solution to cases like this and the Glenelg ferry. If there is no route in law then laws must be changed.
We can help! Please reach out to our team based in Oban. We can help find ways around “difficult” landowners and work with the local community to build out an off grid relay stations around said land to help keep the network alive. We’re an experienced team and there’s no obstacle we can’t find a solution to here on the west coast.
The worst case scenario here ,is helping the community to share Starlink connections to keep prices lower per month between neighbours.
The main issue here is the landowners involved but we’d hate to see a CIC go under without taking the Scottish mindset of not giving up even as the underdogs.
Ridge Reach Networks Ltd.
Ridgereach@outlook.com
I’m confused.
The new owner said last year they wanted to renegotiate the lease but hasn’t actually done anything. Regardless the broadband directors are closing their business?
Isn’t this more a case of their technology becoming obsolete because of Skynet and reading the writing on the wall have decided to get out now?
There is nothing obsolete about wide area wireless networks. I live in rural Spain and use one. I have also used satellite and despite having an unlimited contract at great expense because I worked from home I found that the provider frequently choked my access. Satellite also has issues of latency and is affected by bad weather. Looks like this company needs to relocate to a more amenable land owner. You would think tge Scottish government could help out here.