Protesters were today beginning a last-ditch attempt to stop telecoms giant Vodafone siting a mobile phone mast near their homes in Telford.Residents in Malinslee and Dawley Bank have launched the petition calling on Telford & Wrekin Council to rethink its decision to allow the mast to go up on land near Malinslee playing fields.
Concerns have been raised on health grounds amid fears the mast will be too close to a BMX track used by children and young people.
The petition was launched yesterday and has already attracted more than 60 signatures.
Campaigner John Minshall, of St Leonards Place, Malinslee, said the petition could be signed in shops in both areas.
“It’s a bad idea to have this mast so close to residential areas,” he said.
The council’s plans board passed the plans in December 2006. Council spokeswoman Laura Taylor, said: “Provided the development keeps within the conditions of the application, it has permission to go ahead.”
Work on the 15m high mast off Dawley Green Way is due to begin in a fortnight.
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Of course, none of the anti-mobile phone campaigners will have so much as one mobile phone amongst them.
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“Concerns have been raised on health grounds amid fears the mast will be too close to a BMX track used by children and young people.”
Where’s the evidence of ANY health risk ? A lot of the young people will have mobiles, and if this mast goes ahead those on Voda will actually be transmitting LESS power from their phones… (I work in Mobile industry but not for Voda)
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So if you work in the industry you can say for sure that a phone mast sited next to a childrens play area is 100% safe. There is no risk at all to their health?
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Well Patrick, as you work in the mobile industry you will probably be aware that the receiving mast transmitts considerably more radiation than that of a hand held device. Increase this by a few thousand connections and there you have your safe zone for transmittable radiation around the mast. A university study reccomends that a mast should be sited at least 400m away from any residential areas, this mast however is sited only 300m from a residential area. Now my understanding of this issue is that T&W have not consulted local residents with regard to the installation of this mast. Now I also understand that if I wish to build a structure located on my property, I have to apply for permission and put a little sign up informing residents of my proposal. It seems that T&W are not abiding by their own rules.
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I developed ME (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis) or AKA CFIDS (Chronic Fatigue Immune Deficiency Syndrome) because I was living 300 meters from two 3G cell phone towers and because all my adjacent neighbors had WiFi and the microwave radiation was seeping into my apartment from theirs. I was extremely sick for six months before I even suspected that this EMR (electromagnetic radiation) might indeed be the cause.
I was able to cure myself by removing myself completely from the so-called electrosmog now permeating our environments. I found a place up in the mountains with no cell phone or TV coverage. Within the first 24 hours of being there, 50% of all my horrible symptoms disappeared. I stayed there for about four months. As my body started to heal, I also started to become extremely sensitive to this EMR, which unbeknownst to most of us is insidiously making us sick.
Now I am electrosensitive! WiFi, cell phones, and DECT phones make me sick — and I believe they are making a lot of other people sick too! When people can not sense something with any of their five senses (sight, smell, touch, taste, or hearing) then it is sometimes quite difficult to find the root of the cause of their symptoms.
However, 1984 was the year the 1st commercial cell phone system was set up in the USA. This is also the year people started to get sick with CFS — though the CDC didn’t even have a name for it then. The media initially dubbed it “Yuppie Flu.” Well, yuppies were the first to own cell phones and personal computers. It really is a nobrainer if you think about it. The symptoms of CFS (as well as ADHD, ADD, and autism) mimic what the Russians called “Microwave Sickness” in the early 70s.
40 million Americans now take sleeping pills for insomnia (up 60% from 2000) while 60% of all Americans suffer from sleep disturbances. Brain tumors are now the leading cause of cancer death in children, surpassing leukemia in 2002. Between one in forty to one in a hundred children now suffer from autism (depending on the country) up from approximately one in a thousand in the 1070s.
If you do the research, the pieces fit together — as long as you are not a cell phone junkie living in denial that is.
At any rate, this is definitely not a good idea!
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i’m sure the bayston hill lot will be out in force as there protest was not a nimby issue
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Paul Doyon, your story makes interesting reading and your use of so many statistics will lead many to actually believe what you are saying.
Take your information on America for example. What is there to say that sleep disturbance is caused by anything other than unhealthy lifestyle and the notoriously bad diet that their great nation is renowned for?
I’m not saying that all of your information is incorrect but I’m somewhat reluctant to believe it fully. After all ME is a condition that’s not even fully acknowledged in the medical world.
I’m sure that you didn’t imagine the improvements you felt by isolating yourself from ‘EMR’ but do you not think that the effects could be more psychosomatic than physical. You removed yourself from as much technology as possible, thus removing the stresses of work and life in general. I’m sure any of us would have noticed increased well being after that. Hence the reason I’m going on holiday next month….. but my phone will still be on!
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Maybe all phones should be banned – it may help everyone to communicate with each other better.
After all the majority of phone use is not urgent.
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The government’s Stewart Report states that these masts should not be placed close to children and residents and that not enough is know about the effects from base stations, so caution should always be taken when siting them. The mobile phone companies then seem to place them where ever they want. Surely we are not all that desperate to get a signal and that until they are proved safe we should not allow them to be placed by our homes.
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VATICAN CITY have been prosecuted for using this sort of technology and causing ill health to near by residents. This could start happening all over the world as more and more people start feeling ill because of masts.
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i bet the nimby s all have mobile phones
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‘My dad’ it’s not nimby to fight your corner over something so damaging to health. Most people who fight masts don’t want one in anyones back garden.
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Why can’t you have a mobile phone but also ask that the masts are placed well away from he public. There is so much open space in shropshire, why not site the masts away from homes and play areas. There are very few places you can’t get a signal (open country side mainly). The new 3G phones will need more and more of these masts, may be it’s time that health was the main issue when siting them not some teenagers ability to send photos to his mates!
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