Dear All,
Apologies for posting this but I need to
share my anger at my local parish council (and County Council) with
other mast campaigners. Here in my part of Bristol we have a T-Mobile
and O2 mast a few feet from housing (one resited from a nearby Shell
Garage). When they were proposed I organised 2 campaigns against these
with no help from any councillors. They haven't a clue! Despite
the appalling apathy in this part of the world we managed to get nearly
200 separate letters of complaint and a 500 signature petition against
these things. Naturally this, and our protest at the planning meeting,
were ignored and the masts were given planning permission. (As one of
the Lib Dem councillors who approved them said " I wouldn't let my
Grandchildren have a mobile phone but I approve these mast sitings
because any appeal would cost too much)!
Now during these campaigns I wrote to the
local parish council (Downend and Bromley Heath) to ask them to
immediately inform our action group when they were made aware of any
further mast applications in the area so that we would have plenty
of time to mount a protest campaign. This they promised to
do. Imagine my disgust when, looking on our South Gloucestershire
Council Planning website, I noticed an Orange mast planning
proposal, yards away from the other 2 masts (all 40 metres away from
housing). To add insult to injury, the parish council voted to approve
the application and they had issued a notice to Orange saying that it
was "the best location for the mast"! I emailed the clerk to the
parish council to complain (see the email correspondence is
below). Their grudging apology has infuriated me even more. Apparently
I should have looked at some obscure notice board where ever that may
be. Grrrrr.
Thanks for listening, Rant over.
John Elliott
Dear Mr Elliott
Thank you for responding to my
e-mail. You are absolutely correct - in our letter to you dated
22 Janaury 2004, the Parish Council's Planning Sub
Committee agreed to notify you of all planning applications
received relating to mobile phone masts within the Parish of Downend
& Bromley Heath. However, the application in question was
received on the day of our July Council meeting. Bearing in
mind full Council would not be meeting again until September and
the deadline for comments was less than 14 days, I took the
application along that evening for the Planning Committee
to discuss. Our response was made the following day to
ensure a reply was received within the tight timescale allocated.
Please therefore accept my apologies
that you were not informed of this application. I will
endeavour to ensure that such an oversight does not happen again.
However, as stated in my e-mail below, dates of all Planning,
Finance and full Council meetings are advertised on our notice boards,
and these are open to the public to attend and provide their
views.
Yours sincerely
Mrs Angela Hocking
Clerk - Downend & Bromley
Heath Parish Council
Tel. 0117 9567001
-----
Original Message -----
Sent:
Thursday, October 06, 2005 4:30 PM
Subject:
RE: PK05/2746/PN1, Siting of Orange Telecommunication Mast, Avon Ring
Road, Bromley Heath
Dear Mrs
Hocking,
Thank you
for your reply below.
Obviously
the advertisement of the local Parish Council Planning meeting was
missed by the members of the Badminton Road Mast Action Group otherwise
we would have had time to mount yet another campaign. However, this is
irrelevant as the BRMAG should have automatically been informed of this
proposal. After all, you promised to do so in January
2004. I attach copies of both my letters to you of 4 December 03
and 14 January 04 requesting the following information:
"Could
you please ensure that the Badminton Road Mast Action Group are
notified of all planning applications for mobile phone masts within the
parish. Gloucestershire’s Development Control Officer, Mark Davies,
refused this request and said it is up to the local parish council to
notify us. Could you please therefore inform us of any planning
applications within 500 metres of the Shell Garage, Badminton
Road,
Downend, particularly those planned for installation on the Avon Ring
Road".
You subsequently
agreed to this request in writing so the BRMAG naturally
assumed you would honour your promise and inform us of this new
proposal.
Similar
insensitive proposals prompted nearly 200 people to write
individual letters of objection to the Council and over 500 residents
signed a petition against the phone masts which were
subsequently sited close to residents near the Willey Wicket pub,
against local people's wishes. Yes the Council contemptuously ignored
its local council tax payers. It was hoped that the Parish
Council would take heed of it's parishioners wishes but unfortunately
this was not to be. Many of the people referred to above are
Bromley Heath parishioners. Could you please let me know who
the Parish Councillors are who voted to accept this absurd
planning proposal next to a residential area.
Nationally,
numerous local and parish councils have realised that this
health issue is a serious one and are backing local people and
rejecting these harmful mast planning applications. It's a shame
people in this area are so badly served by its Councils.
Yours sincerely,
John
Elliott
Dear Mr Elliott
Proposed Radio Base
Station
beside A4174 Ring Road,
Bromley Heath, Bristol
Downend & Bromley Heath Parish
Council gave due consideration to the application for this mobile phone
mast. As you know, we recently held a public meeting at which we
listened to both sides of the arguments about the dangers of these
masts. We therefore feel that the Parish Councillors at the
Planning Meeting were in an informed position to make a judgement on
the proposed siting. The Planning Meeting was advertised and open
to the public so any of our parishioners can attend and give their
views on any application we are considering.
We are sorry that you are not
happy with the decision we made.
Yours sincerely
Mrs Angela Hocking
Clerk to the Council
-----
Original Message -----
Sent:
Monday, October 03, 2005 4:03 PM
Subject:
PK05/2746/PN1, Siting of Orange Telecommunication Mast, Avon Ring Road,
Bromley Heath
Dear Mrs Hocking,
It was with extreme sadness and regret that
I inadvertently came across the Parish Council's letter to Orange on
the South Glos website, congratulating them on their planning
application for a mobile phone mast opposite local
residents in Rippon Court. Instead of raising strong objections to
a mast emitting harmful electro magnetic radiation, Downend and
Bromley Heath Parish Council have chosen to ignore the health of their
parishioners and congratulate Orange on "one of the best locations for such a mast"!
Phone mast electro magnetic
radiation emissions are pulsed and low level. The concern is not
necessarily the power, or the thermal (heating) effect of these
emissions. The concern is the biological effect on the body, the
ability to alter human cells. Brainwave patterns pulse on a similar
frequency to radiation emitted by these masts. Independent
research (please see attached)shows
that it is this pulsing frequency of the radiation emitted, that causes
headaches, sleep disturbance, rashes
and fatigue. More worryingly it also reduces
melatonin, the cancer fighting
hormone, being released from the pineal gland.
People living in the
vicinity of masts are subjected to electro magnetic radiation 24 hours
a day, 365 days a year. Current guidelines were adopted by government
in 1992, in the technologys infancy, after subjecting animals to 20 minutes of this electro magnetic radiation and then
pronouncing it safe to humans! In addition, this research only
measured the thermal effects of this radiation, not the biological
effects. Current
independent research suggests that the current
(ICNIRP) government guidelines for mast emissions are 9000 times
too high. Unsurprisingly, ill health and cancer clusters are appearing
around these masts. As you are no
doubt aware there is already an O2 and a T-Mobile mast
in close proximity to this proposal, bombarding local
residents with harmful electro magnetic radiation. Another mast in this
vicinity will treble the exposure and risk to vulnerable children and a
local people.
It goes
without saying that, as usual the operator has ignored paragraph 10 of PPG8 ie Pre-application
discussions should also be carried out by the operator with other
organisations with an interest in proposed development, such as .........
residential groups, parish councils or amenity bodies. No
contact was made with the Badminton Road Mast Action Group. As usual
South Gloucester Council has failed to erect signs at the location
notifying residents of this application. As usual the information on
the South Gloucestershire website is ambiguous with the Parish location
stated as Mangotsfield.
Having
accepted £32 billion from the phone operators for airwave licences the
Government has a great deal to lose and unsurprisingly chooses to
ignore all independent research proving this technology is unsafe. I can only
assume that your Parish councillors were swayed by the Government
Spokesman, Dr Michael Clark at a recent meeting, when he tried
to persuade the meeting that these radiation emitting
masts are safe. Perhaps your councillors would have been
surprised to hear him admit the following in a national newspaper:
|
Interviewer:
Are we all guinea pigs in
some global multi-billion pound commercial experiment?
|
|
Dr
Michael Clark, NRPB Government Spokesman: In a way, yes, we are. (As
quoted in Sunday Times, 3/10/04)
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[The
NRPB is the Government body
that advises Parliament on
safe levels of handset & mast emissions]
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I
trust your parish councillors will reconsider their verdict on this
dangerous proposal and oppose this insensitive and dangerous
mast
siting. As Mangotsfield Parishioners will also be adversely affected by
this proposal I trust Mangotsfield Parish Council will
also
object to this proposal.
Yours sincerely,
John Elliott
Badminton Road Mast Action
Group
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