More than 100 angry protesters took to the streets in Shrewsbury to campaign against plans for a phone mast close to two schools.
One furious parent vowed to switch his daughter to a different school and claimed he might even sell his home if Vodafone pushed ahead with its proposals for the 12-metre high mast in Copthorne Road.
Others hit out at what they claimed was the mobile phone giant’s lack of consultation with residents and alleged the company was putting children’s health at risk.
The mast, which has planning permission, would be situated near to the Woodfield County Infant School and St George’s Primary School.
Dennis Ingall, of Oakfield Road, said his four-year-old daughter Olivia was due to start at Woodfield in January but he said that if the mast went ahead he would move her to a school in Bicton.
Mr Ingall, who also has a one-year-old daughter, said: “My daughter is due to start in January but if it goes ahead we won’t be taking her to school there, we will be pulling her out and taking her to Bicton, if there are enough places. I am also maybe thinking of moving house.”
Mother-of-two Gillian Carroll-Lewis, of Porthill Drive, said she was concerned about radiation.
Lydia Bromwich, of Kingswood Road, said no consultation had been carried out with residents and said there was no “concrete evidence” to support the safety of phone masts.
Campaigner Jon Sharp, who organised the protest yesterday, said if Vodafone did not back down it would face overwhelming local and political pressure.
The demonstration took place just hours after a meeting between Clive Snelling, environmental and planning controller for Vodafone, members of the NoMast Group, Councillor Judith Williams and Shrewsbury MP Daniel Kawczynski.
Dr Rob Matthews, spokesman for Vodafone, has previously said a review of potential locations had taken place which identified 11 alternative locations.
But he said all of these were discounted as they either posed greater visual intrusion than the proposed location on Copthorne Road and/or did not provide sufficient coverage that the firm seeks.
By Russell Roberts
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22 Comments
May be it’s time that health was the most important factor in deciding if a mast gets put up.
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I don’t see much in the way of scientific evidence to support their concerns.
Like the MMR scare that has actually led to an increase in the prevalence of measles, I worry that people are whipped up into hysteria without looking at the science first.
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Siting the mast nearer to somebody else’s children is probably the best solution.
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They are lucky it’s only one mast, we had three erected overnight close to our house which is yards away from a junior school. The trouble is everyone wants to use mobile phones but no-one wants the masts that enable them to work. I feel for these people but, having lived by these 3 for many years have had to put up with them
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By all means hold a protest but make sure the attendants are in the position to make a measured nd considered choice, dragging pre-school children into it is quite appalling.The parents should be ashamed of themselves.
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On the contrary there is a mountain of evidence which proves this technolgy is unsafe (see the Powerwatch and Mast Sanaity websites). Phone mast electro magnetic radiation can cause serious ill health including cancer. Phone masts should not be sited within 350 metres of schools or housing. Numerous studies have proved that melatonin, the cancer fighting hormone, is suppressed by this pulsing radiation. That’s why the cancer clusters continue to increase in the vicinity of phone masts. Phone operators dismiss such research, alleging that their own studies suggest no health risk. However last year the national press revealed that a phone operator covered up the damaging results of their own research. The Ecolog Institute, a research organisation which examines the health effects of mobile phones, was commissioned to investigate the possible health risks of mobile phone masts. The 2003 Ecolog report confirmed:
‘Given the results of the present epidemiological studies, it can be concluded that electromagnetic fields with frequencies in the mobile telecommunications range do play a role in the development of cancer. This is particularly notable for tumours of the central nervous system.’
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I hope the parents are being responsible and do not use mobile phones or any radio devices for that matter.
Microwave ovens work at 2.45GHz and any leakage could be very dangerous…. and your wireless broadband router, laptop, PDA etc. they work at 2.4GHz too. I hope none of the responsible parents use them as they are broadcasting from very close ranges in their own homes!
As I understand it higher frequencies are much more dangerous than lower frequencies, although im clearly no expert on this subject unlike the vast majority of people. If this is the case then I woudlnt worry about the very high powered television antenna on top of the Wrekin either?!?
Question to the experts. When using a mobile phone to check your child is safe, does the phone broadcast at a higher power than the evil mast? Logic tells me that although the phone mast uses a high gain antenna to receive the slightly weaker signal, the fact that you use it so close to your head makes it much more dangerous? So the mast is safe and the phone is the dangerous bit?
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I’m so fed up with people saying there is no evidence. Just look into the trower and Stewart Report. The Stewart report clearly states that masts should not be placed near homes.
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I’m with vodafone and have a prefect signal in the copthorne area so i can’t understand why it is needed.
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I agree with Cliff, what sort of example to show these children by the parents.
Does Cllr Williams have a mobile phone? If she does presumably it works on the Telepathy network where you don’t need transmitters. :-)
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Yet again anti’s are clouding the issue with reports into totally different technology than is being discussed here. ADH the Thower report refers to TETRA (Terrestrial Trunked Radio)as used by the emergency services not standard mobile phone technology. ( as I am sure you know) I don’t say I agree with the mast but lets stick to the facts or your argument appears foolish.
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Lets bring out the Penguins for the protest!!
Where are the penguins?
We need the penguins to save the universe.
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Don’t any of you pro mast people ever ask, why are so many masts going up and is it right. The technology has not been proven safe so common sense should tell you that these mast should be sited with caution.
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Bluejay, Barry trower is a campaigner against both types of mast and has condemned both.
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Mobile phones have been promoted and are now considered to be essential.
The “essential services” managed very well before the mobile phone boom with radio masts on high ground & also on Shrewsbury water tower.
Will Bluejay check cancer rates among police using TETRA system:
Leicester Mercury: Police exposed to radio danger
Leicester Mercury (England) – Thursday, June 2, 2005
Guy Hubbard should be commended for his actions in surveying his colleagues for the possible health effects of the new TETRA police radio system and making his findings public (Mercury, May 19).
I have a personal interest because my brother Neil, who served in the Leicester force, believed that the system caused the oesophageal cancer that eventually caused his death.
As a professional scientist I have taken a keen interest in the scientific debate that rages on this issue.
It is almost a year since Neil’s death and with the information that is now available in the public domain I am becoming more convinced that Neil’s suspicions were indeed correct.
Even the National Radiological Protection board has recently admitted the possibility that pulsed microwave systems can act as a cancer promoter and has urged a precautionary approach.
If the Leicestershire force was behaving as a responsible employee on this issue then it should have conducted and published its own survey. It beggars belief that in a force that is apparently committed to the health and safety of its officers that one of its own employees has felt it necessary to undertake this action.
The force says that the foremost TETRA experts claim that the system is safe.
Who are these experts? What is the body of information that they have accessed that indicates that the system is safe? They seem to know more than the majority of the scientific community, including Sir William Stewart, a chief medical adviser to the Government, who all have urged a precautionary approach, as they cannot give assurance that the system is safe.
In effect, it is an experimental system. I would ask, is strapping one of these devices on your chest for an eight-hour shift following precautionary principals? I think our police officers are being treated as guinea pigs in a potentially lethal experiment.
Guy’s colleagues owe him a debt of gratitude for his actions and they should continue to support him despite what messages may come from senior levels in the organisation.
Dr Ian Dring, Stoke Fleming, Devon.
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Michael Ryan Did you even read my post. the effects of TETRA are well documented and I think proven beyond all doubt to be dangerous. I never even said I agreed that standard mobile phone technology I was merely pointing out that people stating “facts” must state the correct “facts” which I am sure as a scientist you will agree. Jeez some people.
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Bluejay i was stating correct facts, as Trower has written about both types of technology.
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I’ve mentioned TETRA because despite the facts of harm to health are “well documented etc…” as Bluejay states, the fact remains that the system is still being used.
Another fact that’s “proven beyond all doubt” is the association of incinerators with high rates of infant deaths and yet residents of Copthorne, Bowbrook & other wards in SABC are switched off:
The Western Mail: Letter: Incinerator risks
Western Mail (Cardiff, Wales) – Monday, December 8, 2008
Author: MICHAEL RYAN
SIR – When I read about the Williams conjoined twins last week, I checked the news archive and saw that the only other pair of conjoined twins born in the West Midlands were to the Mowatt family, who lived in Chelmsley Wood, Birmingham, in 2001.
Anti- incinerator campaigners will know that rates of “twinning” are higher around incinerators and Chelmsley Wood is just a few miles downwind of Tyesely incinerator .
The Shrewsbury Hospital incinerator is on the western, ie “upwind” side of the town, so Mr and Mrs Williams would have been exposed to PM2.5 emissions from that incinerator , which is sited less than a mile from my house.
Studies of infant mortality rates around 63 incinerators in Japan (2004) and 27 incinerators in Italy (2007) found high rates of infant deaths in proximity to incinerators .
ONS data shows that the 2002-07 infant mortality rate in my electoral ward (Bowbrook) is 15.2 per 1,000 live births, which is higher than in any of the 625 electoral wards in London for the same six-year set of data. Fourteen of London’s electoral wards had zero infant deaths in each of the six years 2002-07 and those zero wards were where there was minimal exposure to PM2.5 emissions from the ten incinerators that affect much, but not all of Greater London.
Those who say that incinerators don’t harm health have not bothered to check any rates of illness or premature deaths at electoral ward level should read the first sentence of the conclusion to the Japanese study which states: “Our study shows a peak-decline in risk with distance from the municipal solid waste incinerators for infant deaths and infant deaths with all congenital malformations combined.”.
MICHAEL RYAN BSc, C Eng, MICE Gains Avenue, Picton, Shrewsbury
Dr Woodward’s December 2008 report considers an eight-fold differential in the infant death rates in groups of electoral wards upwind & downwind of Ironbridge power station to be insignificant. Which group would you choose to live in Bluejay? The group with an average rate of 8.0 per 1,000 live births which is downwind of the power station, or the upwind group where rate for same 5-year period 2000-2004 is 1.0 per 1,000 live births.
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Pub Med is a site that lists some peer-reviewed studies and when I checked for “infant mortality, air pollution”, there were 282 items listed which are being ignored by the Environment Agency, Health Protection Agency & Shropshire County Council & SABC, & here’s the latest:
Paediatr Child Health. 2007 Mar;12(3):225-33. Links
Ambient air pollution and children’s health: A systematic review of Canadian epidemiological studies.
Koranteng S, Vargas AR, Buka I.
Paediatric Environmental Health Specialty Unit, Misericordia Hospital, Edmonton, Alberta.
BACKGROUND: There is growing concern about the health effects of ambient air pollution (AP) in children. The present article summarizes and compares local information regarding the adverse effects of AP on the health of Canadian children with reports from elsewhere. METHODS: PUBMED, MEDLINE and EMBASE databases were searched for epidemiological studies, published between January 1989 and December 2004, on the adverse health effects of criteria air pollutants among Canadian children. RESULTS: Eleven studies investigated the association between AP and various respiratory health outcomes, while one study assessed the effect of AP on sudden infant death syndrome. Another study examined the effects of AP on pregnancy outcomes. Most of the available information was from Ontario and British Columbia. Despite inconsistencies among study results and data from elsewhere, evidence from Canadian studies suggest that AP may cause adverse respiratory health effects in children and adverse pregnancy outcomes, and may contribute to infant mortality in Canada. INTERPRETATION: AP has detrimental health effects among Canadian children. Paediatricians and other health care workers with an interest in child health should encourage parents and children to adhere to smog (AP) advisories. Existing regulatory practices should be reviewed to reduce current levels of ambient air pollutants in Canada.
& here’s abstract of study about cell phones:
: J Cutan Pathol. 2003 Feb;30(2):135-8. Links
Effects of electromagnetic radiation from a cellular telephone on epidermal Merkel cells.
Irmak MK, Oztas E, Yagmurca M, Fadillioglu E, Bakir B.
Department of Histology and Embryology,Gulhane Military Medical Academy, Ankara, Turkey.
The number of reports on the effects induced by electromagnetic radiation (EMR) from cellular telephones in various cellular systems is still increasing. Until now, no satisfactory mechanism has been proposed to explain the biological effects of this radiation except a role suggested for mast cells. Merkel cells may also play a role in the mechanisms of biological effects of EMR. This study was undertaken to investigate the influence of EMR from a cellular telephone (900 MHz) on Merkel cells in rats. A group of rats was exposed to a cellular telephone in speech position for 30 min. Another group of rats was sham-exposed under the same environmental conditions for 30 min. Exposure led to significantly higher exocytotic activity in Merkel cells compared with the sham exposure group. This finding may indicate the possible role of Merkel cells in the pathophysiology of the effects of EMR.
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JE said:
“Phone mast electro magnetic radiation can cause serious ill health including cancer”
JE – Could you please provide proof for this statement or retract it. I work in the industry and I’ve NEVER seen any evidence that to support this assertion.
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i bet these hypocrites still use mobile phones though right?
stop standing in the way of business, we need economic growth
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Does tory boy want economic growth and also clean air? If so, he should be lobbying for plasma gasification of waste instead of incineration.
Saving over one hundred pounds for every tonne of waste disposed of is worth doing and yet Shropshire County Council has no interest in making such a massive saving and at the same time preventing illness and premature deaths at all ages.
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