Town Council Meeting – 5th September 2007
Statement by the ‘No Masts in Southwell’ campaign group
The No Masts in Southwell campaign group are here tonight in relation to O2’s proposed mast at the Telephone Exchange, Southwell. We would like to begin by thanking the council for their significant level of support in this matter. However despite the council’s support and our community’s considerable opposition to O2’s proposal, it is still O2’s intention to proceed with the proposed mast.
The council may have read in the Advertiser that in order to effect real change in this matter we have launched our campaign into the national arena. We have come here tonight to ask you as our town councilors, to support us in this objective by lobbying Westminster directly for a complete review of the planning procedures relating to telecommunications applications. We believe that if our community can collectively raise the national profile of this issue then central government cannot ignore our concerns.
Society’s fears about the long term effects of radiation from base stations are rising, not decreasing. You only have to look at articles now regularly cropping up in national newspapers. Typically the coverage is about communities who have lived in the shadow of a mobile phone mast for 5 to10 years and are suddenly finding that something is seriously wrong, with cancer clusters and tumours being identified, well above national averages. Of course it has not been proven that mobile phone masts are to blame but one of the common denominators in all these articles is the close proximity of a mobile phone mast to residential housing and/or schools. We do not accept that the cancer clusters occuring around base stations are all ‘coincidental’. We believe this uncertainty should be sufficient grounds for a precautionary approach to be adopted; for operators and landowners to behave responsibly and seek to minimize risk for communites. In our opinion it is not right that O2 and National Grid Wireless are able to hide behind current planning legislation thus ignoring our community’s legitimate concerns and avoiding agreeing a mutually acceptable site with our community. We want public health to be given consideration in telecommunication applications (because it is relevant) and we want the views of communities to be taken into account by everyone involved in the process. Our vulnerable young children and community should not be exposed to an unquantifiable risk to satisfy society’s convenience.”
Thank you for your time and we hope we can count on your support.