No person shall fix or place any overhead beam, rail, pipe, cable, wire or other similar apparatus over, along or across a highway without the consent of the highway authority for the highway, and the highway authority may attach to their consent such reasonable terms and conditions as they think fit.

Subject to subsection (3) below, a person aggrieved by the refusal of a consent under subsection (1) above, or by any terms or conditions attached to such a consent, may appeal to a magistrates’ court.

No appeal lies under subsection (2) above against any term or condition attached by the Minister to a consent given by him under this section if he declares the term or condition to be necessary for the purpose of securing the safety of persons using the highway to which the consent relates or of preventing interference with traffic on it.

If a person contravenes subsection (1) above, or the terms or conditions of any consent given under that subsection, he is guilty of an offence and liable to a fine not exceeding F1level 1 on the standard scale; and if the offence is continued after conviction he is guilty of a further offence and liable to a fine not exceeding £1 for each day on which the offence is so continued.

This section does not apply to any works or apparatus belonging to any statutory undertakers, and for this purpose the Civil Aviation Authority F2, a person who holds a licence under Chapter I of Part I of the Transport Act 2000 (to the extent that the person is carrying out activities authorised by the licence), and F3F4a universal service provider in connection with the provision of a universal postal service and the operator of F5an electronic communications code networkF6or a driver information F7network are to be deemed to be statutory undertakers.