MORE than 50 residents have lodged objections with Warrington Borough Council to a plan for a 15m high mobile phone mast designed as a replica telegraph pole.
They claim it would be more than twice the height of nearby lamp posts and would dominate the view from the nearest house, which is less than 10m away.
The plan involves land off Longwood Road, Appleton and has been submitted by Vodafone and Telefonica O2, who would share the timber-effect mast.
It will come before members of the borough’s planning management committee next week – recommended for approval by officers.
Councillors have been told a decision must be made by April 25 or the proposal will be deemed to have been approved.
The applicants say the mast is needed to provide capacity for future telecommunications and to enable the planned roll-out of new technologies.
Residents say the mast would be an alien and unsympathetic addition to the existing clutter in the area, would be higher than the nearest property,
They claim the potential for mast-sharing has not been fully explored and that there are other, more suitable alternatives available – in particular an existing mast on Witherwin Avenue.
Objectors also claim there has been inadequate consultation.
Planning officers say the mast would have only a minor impact on the street scene and any visual impact is outweighed by the need to extend and improve network coverage.
MORE than 50 residents have lodged objections with Warrington Borough
Council to a plan for a 15m high mobile phone mast designed as a
replica telegraph pole.
Residents fight timber phone mast
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Gary Skentelbery
Experienced journalist for more than 40 years. Managing Director of magazine publishing group with three in-house titles and on-line daily newspaper for Warrington. Experienced writer, photographer, PR consultant and media expert having written for local, regional and national newspapers. Specialties: PR, media, social networking, photographer, networking, advertising, sales, media crisis management. Chair of Warrington Healthwatch Director Warrington Chamber of Commerce Patron Tim Parry Johnathan Ball Foundation for Peace. Trustee Warrington Disability Partnership. Former Chairman of Warrington Town FC.
4 Comments
Just thinking that if the people that are objecting to the appearance of what amounts to a single telephone pole then how would they have gone on back in the days when telephone poles were as common as lamp posts?
Our society wouldn’t have evolved to where it is today if it weren’t for the telephone but on the other hand, the carrier pigeons would be doing ok!
You see this proposal is South of the Canal!!! When it is really serious and involves other parts of the Borough then consultation is non existant and whgen we do hear about things the time for objections has passed. This is certainly NIMBY!!!
Note the reason for the application in the first place;- “The applicants say the mast is needed to provide capacity for future telecommunications……..” . If that is the case then they should be turned down and told to come back at whatever time in the future IF and WHEN it is ever needed! It seems that the infrastructure for major housing development in the area is continuing to be insidiously put into place. This was clearly made apparent by the building of a new primary school in Stockton Heath – when there were already over 900 surplus school places in this area! After years of professing to be against any further development on Appleton’s green fields, one of the first things the Lib/Cons did when they got into power was to apply to Govt to have Warrington’s future housing development no’s increased. This phone mast is another nail in the coffin for Appleton’s green fields!
For those who think that it is NIMBYish to object to a timber pole that overhangs a home, then would they please provide their addresses to O2/Vodaphone as volunteers for the new site. And please note that the area currently has (measured) high capacity, and hundreds of school children pass by this point every day, and live in the shadow of the development. So if it ever turns out that the EMF pulsing from these devices are harmful to the person or environment then it will be the children of the future that take the hit. Most everyone uses mobile phones, but not most everyone has to have a 50 foot pole next to their front door. And by the way lamp posts do not emit pulsed radiation. And it doesn’t matter whether it is North, South, East or West of the canal it’s still right to care about your environment.