I think it is wonderful.
What happens when you are relying on landowners consent, all the time, mind you?
There is no way to get to Heasta apart from using
i) the sea which is large and in the wrong place, or using
ii) a narrow strip of land next to the public road, which might be owned by the council, I am unsure, or else
iii) going across completely moorland which is owned by a local mega-landowner who owns absolutely everything for miles around.
In the case of (ii) the cable could be run over by cars if they depart even slightly from the road, which they do in a panic situation. And a long time ago vehicles were always driving over BT’s copper which runs parallel to the roadside but was just lying on the bare stones ground at the Heasta Fank (sheep pens), right below my house. The vehicles pull off the road to park by the fank and then had no choice but to just drive straight over the cable every day, doing a fair job of knackering it in the end. BT finally buried it below the earth and gravel at some effective depth.
As for (iii), I don't know what the legal situation might be.
I presume that the B4*s have friendly landowners, might even be supporters of the project. Wonder if it is a nightmare if one objects? Fibre of course is not really distance-constrained, but still things could presumably become a nightmare if insufficient contiguous friendliest can be found.