A UK government scheme that was supposed to have seen up to 85 mobile phone black spots in Scotland being provided with a publicly-funded telecoms mast has not resulted in a single mast being built in the four years since it was announced.

The £150 million Mobile Infrastructure Project (MIP) was unveiled by Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne in 2011 with the aim of funding the building of telecoms masts in no-signal parts of the UK where it was commercially unviable for mobile operators to provide coverage, but so far only £7m has been spent.

The original aim was to provide at least a basic voice and text message signal (2G) to the “final less than one per cent of homes and businesses with no mobile coverage at all” by May 2015, but this deadline has now been extended to March 2016.

Last week a spokesman for the Department of Media, Culture and Sport (DCMS) told the Sunday Herald that, so far, not a single mast has so far been built in Scotland under the programme, despite 85 not spots in Scotland having been identified as potential sites.

The spokesman said that three planning applications “for potential MIP sites” have been submitted for locations at Corrie Common in Dumfriesshire and Lilliesleaf and Ettrickbridge, both in the Borders.

Across the UK, only five of the 600 potential sites have so far got a functioning mast (in Devon, Dorset, North Yorkshire, Somerset and Suffolk), while construction is now underway at 14 sites. Eight further sites are designated by the DCMS as being in the “build phase”.

The spokesman insisted that “it was never envisaged that all of these sites would result in a mast site being completed”.

"Providing mobile coverage in rural and the most remote areas, especially in Scotland, is challenging by its very nature,” he said.

“Finding the most suitable site for a mast that meet the technical challenges whilst being cost effective for the taxpayer can be complex and time-consuming.”

The spokesman added that one reason for the low level of spend on the MIP so far (£7m of the £150m budget) could be attributed to the fact that Arqiva, the main contractor, is paid in stages as work is completed “with the vast bulk of the money paid once a mast has gone live”

The spokesman also said that an agreement with the UK’s four mobile network operators (EE, O2, Three and Vodafone) finalised last December would see £5 billion of investment in the UK’s mobile infrastructure by the end of the 2017 which would reduce partial not spots by half and total not spots by two thirds.

The MIP identified 80,000 complete not spots across the UK with the aim to provide coverage to around 60,000 of them.

Part of the reason for the delay in the project was a legal requirement for clearance from the European Commission, which was granted in December 2012 but it was not until July 2013 that the UK government announced funding for the scheme, when it said that Aberdeenshire was one of five areas around the UK that would start to benefit from the scheme by the end of 2013.

Yet figures from Ofcom for 2014 show that 11 per cent of Aberdeenshire has no 2G signal, 38 per cent has no 3G signal and 99 per cent has no 4G signal.

A report published by Ofcom earlier this month found that Scotland had the worst mobile data 3G coverage in the UK, with a quarter of Scotland’s land mass having no mobile signal at all.

The areas of Scotland with the worst mobile coverage are the Western and Northern Isles, Argyll & Bute and the Highlands. However it is not just the Highlands and Islands that are poorly served: Angus, Perth & Kinross, Borders and South Ayrshire all have significant gaps in their 2G and 3G coverage and have almost no 4G coverage at all. The data shows that Glasgow is the only part of the country that has 100 per cent 2G, 3G and 4G coverage.

LibDem Orkney MSP Liam McArthur said: “If the MIP cannot deliver because of planning and other constraints then the government needs to find other ways to address the market failure of providing mobile links to rural areas.

“If the project budget is not being spent then I would hope the money would be redirected to other ways in which mobile coverage can be improved across the country.”

“Mobile links are no longer just a nice luxury: they are now a part of business life and also help to deliver health services and that justifies intervention by government to make sure the infrastructure is in place.”

A Scottish Government spokesman said: “It is disappointing that the UK Government’s MIP has failed to deliver any benefits in Scotland, four years from its launch.

“The Scottish Government is not relying on the UK Government to address mobile coverage issues in Scotland and is instead committed to working in collaboration with industry to improve mobile coverage in rural Scotland.

“Together with the mobile operators, we are exploring potential approaches to addressing mobile coverage gaps. We have already delivered 4G services on the isle of Coll in a pilot project in collaboration with Vodafone, using a community-owned mast.

“We will trial a number of alternative models alongside this project with view to determining which could be scalable in future.”