Tiering

but the voluntary agreement in the early stages of the development of 3G to cooperate to minimise number of masts failed (Emmelin & Söderblom 2002 p 32-33).

All in all, the information of the coordination is however during 2001 what Emmelin and Söderblom (2002, p 16) describes as “fragmentary, inaccessible and partly contradictory”

(author’s translation), and “different agencies advices to the municipalities are partly unclear or plain incorrect…” (ibid p 5).

8.8.2 Mast free zones

A phenomenon of principle interest, focusing a conflict of spatial planning, is the fact that several municipalities wanted to have “mast free zones”, as a result of scepticism or as a way to handle the radiation issue. This was the case for example in Karlshamn, Nässjö, Linköping, Norrköping, Helsingborg, Västerås, Arvika, Sunne, Emmaboda, Olofström, Rättvik, Sotenäs and Söderhamn (see Emmelin & Söderblom 2002, p 31-32). This is an example of when, even if central agencies claim the radiation to not be hazardous, the public worry for the radiation is still an entity in the local planning context. The worry itself makes people act against the infrastructure roll out. One way to deal with this opinion in the local context was for the municipalities to plan for mast free zones.

When the municipal committee denies a building permit, or delays the decision, as in the case of a mast permit in northern Karlshamn (Slänsmåla 1:9), on the basis of that “the area may become a mast free zone” it acts on the municipal right of planning its own territory, a right that has been partly challenged by the extreme coverage requirements of the licence conditions. The 3G decision does not formally change the planning rights of the municipalities, but leads to a pressure on the municipalities to comply with the state infrastructure policy. Some of the municipalities were jammed between a national technological growth system on one hand and a political will to comply with 3G opponents within their territory, sometimes putting also the coverage seeking operators in a tight spot, who had promised to roll out an infrastructure in territories where the local authorities sometimes denied them. This addresses the relation between the State and the municipality when it comes to at which administrative level the planning for land use should take place.

The high coverage demands and the inflexible planning of the operators gave the municipalities no action space, no room to adjust mast roll out within its territory. This gave tiering problems, the internal consistency was damaged.

8.8.3 Tiering and sustainability issues

Economic growth is one of the basic ideas of the Swedish infrastructure development, and the importance of the infrastructure is communicated to the municipalities. The sustainable development handling in the 3G design is distorted by the fact that the ecological dimension remained unhandled at central level but was pushed down to be handled in local building permit assessment, as well as the regional “natural impact” assessment of the 12:6 consultations.

The outcome of the so called beauty contest, to cover 8 860 000 persons, equalling between 99,98 % and 97 % of the populated areas as time passed, diminished the municipal handling space and sidesteped the municipal planning monopoly. Although the handling of the

ecological dimension of sustainable development by this finds its way back to the 3G development, the vertical balance remains distorted, or un-tiered, since the extreme coverage requirements and fast roll out speed has pressured the municipal handling system, and undermined the local planning monopoly. The fact remains that the comprehensive impact of the system is not assessed, and the piecemeal assessment mast by mast can not weigh up this loss.

The governmental double role consists of both to see to that the resources of the sector, for instance the PTA, is used efficiently, and to see to that the public interest is taken care of. The relation between the State and the municipalities has been mentioned above, and is related to the matter of tiering: on the one hand a national technological growth system and on the other environment protection, resource use, public concern over radiation etc. The 3G decision is supranational, meaning that Sweden could not avoid developing 3G, but how fast and to what degree could to some extent be decided nationally. The 3G case shows the interplay between the administrative levels that is studied in the 3G case, perhaps especially in the result of the so called beauty contest in contrast to hesitant municipalities, controlling the land and water use of its territory, and facing central unavoidable decision concerning a national infrastructure of perhaps 10 000 masts assessed only one mast at a time, locally. The legal norms are involved mainly as a result of the top - down setup, which quite naturally lead to the question of what the ability is of the legal system to create a degree of consistency from supranational via national and regional to the local level where legally binding land use decisions are taken in a fragmented system.

Tiering in the 3G case can be seen as different for the three components of sustainable development. Economic growth is a major component of the policy decision and is then largely imposed onto lower levels of the system. Municipalities can oppose the placing of an individual mast based on arguments of “suitable location” but the option of saying no to the system as such is not open. In practice they have little influence over the competition ideology inherent in the system. Likewise the social cohesion element of almost complete coverage of the population is in reality outside the competence of the lower levels of the system. As mentioned the environmental component was not introduced at all at the policy level. If seen in the light of sustainable development this can be seen as the view of sustainability that sets economic growth as a prerequisite for social and environmental sustainability. The environmental impacts can be only partly handled by the present system of environmental governance at local and regional level. The regional level essentially deals with the nature conservation aspects of the mast infrastructure. The local level deals with aspects of land use.

Public concern over the fear of radiation has been seen to be excluded from examination at these two levels by the expert opinion of the Swedish Radiation Protection Authority. This is an illustration of the clash between the environmentalist and the plan paradigm discussed above, which also shows the tiering problems. The expert judgement by a central authority defines the issue out of the local process. The handling of the environmental component arguably also undermines important aspects of social sustainability, where participation and of trust as factors in sustainability are often emphasised.

It is clear that there have been conflicting interests at work in the case of the 3G infrastructure development in Sweden. On one hand a national growth policy, a political will to stimulate a technologically high national profile, a leading nation in the connected global society, and on the other hand stands the interests of constructing the extensive infrastructure sustainably, accompanied by a complex legislation with some inconsistent features when facing matters as radiation fearing individuals, as well as confused or obstructive municipalities, following in the trails of the infrastructure development.