Campaigners fight Mutley mast

ANGRY residents have staged a protest against plans to erect a 12.5 metre mobile phone mast in Mutley.

People living close to the junction of Kensington Road and Queen's Road, where phone company O2 has applied to site a mast, took to the streets to protest on New Year's Day.

A petition against the mast was handed to Councillor Andy Kerswell.

Jon Payn, the owner of West Hill Stores, said his shop and home are just 15 metres from the proposed site.

He said: "There are a lot of very angry people here. A lot of people are objecting, as they are all over the country."

He said many people were very concerned about the long-term health implications of living near a mobile phone mast, as some studies had suggested they could be harmful.

But because the Government does not accept there is a health risk, objections on health grounds will not be considered by council planning officers, who will decide on January 6 if the mast needs planning permission or whether it can be built straight away.

Mr Payn said: "The planning objection we are making is about the visual impact, which is also very strong. It will tower above us."

Mr Payn, 58, said he had been looking into the health risks associated with mobile phone masts and was particularly concerned about the possible effect on his three children.

"Two of my children wrote to the council themselves; that's how frightened they are about this.

"From what I have been finding out, we would have to move away if this goes ahead.

"We're not all going to drop down dead with brain seizures, but, with the long-term effects unknown, I can't see how, as a responsible parent, I could stay."

Mr Payn said he had even offered his own house as an alternative site for the mast, because the radiation was not directed downwards.

In its letter to the council, O2 said the mast would be used to improve the 2G and 3G coverage in the area.

One of more than a dozen proposed mobile phone masts in the city, it would stand just over 100 yards from a mast Vodafone wants to erect at the juntion of Greenbank Road and Longfield Place.