News – 1 June 2005
T-Mobile base station mast
There are plans for a mobile-phone mast to be erected on the crescent at the junction of Rose Hill and Courtland Road.
On 28 April 2005 AWA (a company that provides ‘telecommunications network implementation and management’), circulated a ‘pre-application consultation’ to a small number of local residents living in the immediate vicinity. It invited comments within just 14 days.
The mast would be 12 metres (40 feet) high – almost double the height of the surrounding houses - and sited between two of the three existing trees, equalling the height of the tallest. The stated reason for its location here is that ‘within the search area this option allowed us to site the installation the furthest from housing’.
Two other locations have already been ‘discounted’. One on the Council allotments in Iffley was rejected because the Council ‘will not enter into telecoms agreements’. Another on St Mary’s Church, Iffley, was rejected because the Church was ‘not able to provide required coverage, also building not available to mobile operators’. So Rose Hill looks like the only serious ‘option’.
The document is reassuring about the health risks to local residents. It claims that ‘because of the very low power required... the emissions will be many times within the ICNIRP (International Commission on Non-Ionising Radiation Protection) threshold’.
This threshold was also recommended by the Stewart Report in Britain in 2000. The report stated that ‘the balance of evidence indicates that there is no general risk to the health of people living near base stations, on the basis that exposures are expected to be small fractions of guidelines’.
However, ‘gaps in scientific knowledge’ led to the report recommending a ‘precautionary approach’ until more research findings become available. It added that in some cases people’s well-being may be adversely affected by insensitive siting of base stations, particularly near schools. There is a zone beneath a base station where emissions are higher than elsewhere and which might require fencing off. Quite how far this zone would extend on the Rose Hill site is not made clear.
In fact, the siting of mobile-phone masts has been resisted vigourously elsewhere in Oxford, most recently along the Cowley Road. Rival networks all need their own masts, so more of them are erected than is strictly necessary. They are completely inappropriate in residential areas.
The 40-foot mast proposed by T-Mobile for Rose Hill would be extremely prominent and unsightly. The ‘screening’ effect of the trees would be limited, especially in winter. There is no obvious reason why a proposal rejected on two sites in Iffley should be acceptable in Rose Hill.
Contacts:
AWA
Efford Park, Milford Road, Lymington, Hampshire SO41 0JD
R Crutchfield, direct line 01590 613951, mobile 07811 138107, email rob.crutchfield@awa-uk.com
T-Mobile:
Network Information Line 0870 321 6047
Base stations and health:
World Health Organisation www.who.int
Department of Health www.doh.gov.uk
Stewart Group Report www.iegmp.org.uk