(1)This section applies where—
(a)any order is made by a local authority under section 258(1), or on the application of a local authority under section 251(1), which extinguishes a public right of way; or
(b)any order is made by a competent authority under section 257 which authorises the stopping up or diversion of a footpath or bridleway,
and at the time of the publication of the notice required by section 252(1) or, as the case may be, paragraph 1 of Schedule 14 any telecommunication apparatus was kept installed for the purposes of a telecommunications code system under, in, on, over, along or across the land over which the right of way subsisted.
(2)In subsection (1) “competent authority” has the same meaning as in section 257 and in the following provisions of this section references to the authority are to the authority who made the order or, as the case may be, to the authority on whose application it was made.
(3)The power of the operator of the telecommunications code system to remove the apparatus—
(a)shall, notwithstanding the making of the order, be exercisable at any time not later than the end of the period of three months from the date on which the right of way is extinguished or authorised to be stopped up or diverted; and
(b)if before the end of that period the operator of the system has given notice to the authority of his intention to remove the apparatus or a part of it, shall be exercisable in respect of the whole or, as the case may be, that part of the apparatus after the end of that period.
(4)The operator of the system may by notice given in that behalf to the authority not later than the end of that period abandon the telecommunication apparatus or any part of it.
(5)Subject to subsection (4), the operator of the system shall be deemed at the end of that period to have abandoned any part of the apparatus which the operator has then neither removed nor given notice of his intention to remove.
(6)The operator of the system shall be entitled to recover from the authority the expense of providing, in substitution for the apparatus and any other telecommunication apparatus connected with it which is rendered useless in consequence of the removal or abandonment of the first-mentioned apparatus, any telecommunication apparatus in such other place as the operator may require.
(7)Where under the previous provisions of this section the operator of the system has abandoned the whole or any part of any telecommunication apparatus, that apparatus or that part of it shall vest in the authority and shall be deemed, with its abandonment, to cease to be kept installed for the purposes of a telecommunications code system.
(8)As soon as reasonably practicable after the making of any such order as is mentioned in paragraph (a) or (b) of subsection (1) in circumstances in which that subsection applies in relation to the operator of any telecommunications code system, the person by whom the order was made shall give notice to the operator of the making of the order.
(9)Subsections (5) and (6) of section 256 apply for the purposes of this section as they apply for the purposes of that section.