Temporary Vodafone UK mast brings some relief to Lancaster after network attacks

The government MP for Lancaster and Wyre, Cat Smith, has today confirmed that mobile operator Vodafone has finally erected a new but temporary mobile mast in central Lancaster, which became necessary after the old site was taken offline in April 2026 following repeated attacks of vandalism by gangs of youths.

The problems appear to have started well over a year ago after the original mast site, which was shared with O2 (Virgin Media) and sat on top of a derelict building on Fenton Street in the centre of Lancaster, came under repeated criminal attack. Sadly local efforts to tackle the problem were unsuccessful and Vodafone ended up deeming the mast site to be “non-viable”.

Vodafone then switched the site off and began hunting for viable alternative sites, but they acknowledged that this was likely to take anything from 12 to 36 months to deliver (i.e. finding the location, securing planning permission and then construction). Such a long wait was obviously quite a big problem for a central city mast site, which serves quite a few customers and thus caused a serious problem with signal reception in the city centre.

Back in July 2026 Vodafone informed ISPreview that they were responding to this in the short-term by preparing for the deployment of a temporary mast site, which finally went live earlier this month.

Cat Smith MP said:

“Just over a year since the Vodafone (and O2) mast was vandalised, I have been working hard pulling together telecom companies, local building owners and council planning team, and I’m pleased to update you that a new mast has been installed in the central area of Lancaster – which is now live!

Over the past couple of weeks Vodafone, Three UK, and O2 customers should hopefully have seen some improved signal reliability as the mast services these networks.

Does this mean everything’s fixed? Sadly no! Mobile internet coverage in the UK is worse than any EU or G7 country, and the difference between indoor and outdoor signal can fluctuate hugely.

I’m already working with infrastructure providers, telecom companies, and other city centre building owners both public and private, trying to get a permanent fix to this historically poor signal.”

The reality in the UK is that finding and deploying new mobile sites is a frustratingly slow process for mobile operators and their customers. This is one of the reasons why mobile operators frequently call for planning reform, while seeking to reduce the number of applications requiring full planning or prior approval to ease pressure on local authorities. But even favourable changes here won’t help much if planning authorities continue to be under-resourced.