Community groups and landowners have lost out on £1bn as ministers failed to rein in telecoms companies, a campaign group has said.
Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries was accused of “cosying up” to tech giants, while they slashed rent payments for 5G masts by millions every year.
Thousands of land owners who have 5G masts on their property are paid a fee by telecoms firms.
The payments benefited many hospitals, churches, sports clubs, community centres and individual landlords across the UK, who received a crucial stream of revenue.
But following lobbying from telecoms giants, the government overhauled the rules in 2017, allowing firms to slash the amount of rent they pay.
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The changes gave Telecoms giants the power to cut annual rental fees they pay to property owners by up to 95%, and have seen £209m per year in lost revenue since, according to a report by economics consultancy Cebr.
The government suggested the reduction was likely to be no more than 40%, and claimed it would speed up the rollout of 5G by making it easier for firms to put up masts.
But reduced compensation has resulted in many landowners resisting equipment being installed on their property - and legal action has slowed down the network rollout.
Campaign group Protect and Connect, a consortium of landowners and businesses which is part-funded by AP Wireless, a phone mast leasing firm, is calling for rents to return to pre-2017 levels.
Last month, Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries met with companies including BT Group and Vodafone to discuss how those companies could ease the cost of living burden on people, the latest in a string of meetings between ministers and Telecoms operators in recent months.
From January to March of this year, Department for Digital Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) Ministers Julia Lopez and Mike Freer met with Telecoms companies and lobbying groups for operators on eight separate occasions.
Billericay Rugby and Football Club is one landowner facing a +90% rent cut, from £8,500 to just £750 a year. EE owns the mast, but through a joint venture with O2, Vodafone also controls infrastructure on Billericay RFC’s land.
Neil Jarvis, chairman of the club said: “It’s incredibly disheartening to see how much money greedy telecom giants make while community clubs like mine are suffering.
“A few thousand pounds is nothing to them but is everything to us. It allows us to provide so much to the kids in the area.
“Without it, I'm worried about the future of our beloved Billericay RFC."
Anna Turley, former Labour MP and Chair of the Protect & Connect campaign, said: “A new government urgently needs to address this Bill, which was ill thought out, poorly drafted and has only benefited Telecoms giants who are cosying up to the government in order to line their own pockets at the expense of community groups.
“Sadly, it is easier for mobile operators to access government ministers than for the British public to access 5G.
“This bill has done nothing to accelerate the rate of 5G adoption, and is leaving communities who are already struggling with the rising cost of living facing a financial black hole.”
Richard Bull, Park Manager of the Highfield Park Trust, which had its rent cut from around £15,000 to just £200 a year, said: “We’ve lost our savings since Cornerstone slashed the rent we receive for the phone mast on our grounds.
“Paths around the park, which provide much-needed green space for the community here in St Albans, have fallen into disrepair as we are no longer able to save the amounts required to resurface them.
“By giving even greater power to mobile phone companies, this law shows that the government holds charities and communities like ours in total contempt."
A paper by the Institute for Economic Affairs (IEA), published in June, called for pre-2017 rates to be restored.
IEA Academic and Research Director James Forder said: “It is baffling that the Government seems determined to stop it operating, thereby depriving landowners of a fair return on their land, and slowing down 5G rollout at the same time.”
A DCMS spokesperson said: "We have listened to the concerns of Protect and Connect, a lobbying campaign funded by a company which stands to benefit commercially from reversing our reforms.
"However, the pricing for the right to install telecoms kit is now more closely aligned to the regime for utilities like water, electricity and gas. This is enabling operators to put more investment into the roll out of better mobile coverage, while ensuring landowners are paid properly for hosting infrastructure on their land.
"The Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Bill is vital to reducing the number of disputes between landowners and mobile operators ending up in court by encouraging fairer, faster and more collaborative negotiations and it will continue its journey through Parliament in the autumn."
