Planning training incl mobile phone masts dangers?

This morning I poured through the Schedule of Applications coming up for Development Control Committee (DCC) next Tuesday - I wont be on DCC anymore as the committee size has been reduced from 17 councillors to 12 and Greens only have one place - this will allow me to go on the Performance and Audit Scrutiny Committee - something I've been needing to understand - hope it is more exciting than it sounds!

I'll miss DCC but will still be talking to Officers about items I've picked up in the Schedule - this month for example I would like to see a waste minimisation condition added to one application and of course Sustainable Urban Drainage conditions to several - when are the Council going to add them as a matter of course - I'm planning to look even more into this issue as the whole system around SUDs is deeply unsatisfactory......moree of taht in another blog...

Anyhow the afternoon saw compulsory training for those on DCC - I joined them as it is important to keep up to date with changes and also still have stuff to learn - some interesting discussions around enforcement...

Mobile phone masts - perceived health risks can still be taken into account

One particular point I was pleased to have clarified was that with mobile phone mast applications councillors can take account of fear that residents have about possible ill-health caused by masts. This is something that I tried to get accepted last year when an application came before DCC.

Basically telecommunications base stations use and transmit electromagnetic waves and there is considerable public concern that such waves may have adverse effects on health. In 1999, the Government asked the National Radiological Protection Board to set up the Independent Expert Group on Mobile Phones. This group, under the chairmanship of Sir William Stewart, published its report in 2000. The report concluded that 'The balance of evidence indicates that there is no general risk to the health of people living near to base stations on the basis that exposures are expected to be small fractions of the guidelines. However, there can be indirect adverse effects on their well-being in some cases.’ The report also said that the possibility of harm cannot be ruled out with confidence and that the gaps in knowledge are sufficient to justify a precautionary approach.

Health issues and public concern can in principle be material considerations in applications for planning permission and prior approval. It is for the local planning authority in the first instance (and ultimately the courts), having regard to the Stewart Group’s report and Government guidance, to determine what weight to attach to such considerations in any particular case. See more at Campaign for Planning Sanity here.

Mast and phone dangers

To me it is extraordinary that we can still put up these masts in residential areas when there is still so much doubt - indeed the disturbing evidence that emerges about mobile phones seems only to grow - for example 6 weeks or so ago The Times ran a report arguing that officially recommended limits on radiation exposure should be cut to 1/1000th of those in force. The suggestion has not been taken up by the company or by regulators.

The Times reports that "Campaigners claimed T-Mobile’s handling of the report was part of a wider pattern of behaviour by the industry in its efforts to keep discussion of the health risks off the agenda. The Ecolog Institute, which has been researching mobile phone technology since 1992, was paid by T-Mobile to evaluate evidence on its potential dangers. But Dr Peter Neitzke, one of the authors of the report, has accused T-Mobile, which has about 17m British customers, of diluting the findings by commissioning other studies from which it knew “no critical results or recommendations were to be expected”.

The Ecolog study, drawn up in 2000 and updated three years later, has only been published in Germany and was unknown to British campaigners until it was recently leaked to the Human Ecological Social Economic project (HESE), which examines the effect of electromagnetic fields on health. Andrea Klein, a member of HESE, said: “T-Mobile tried to dilute and bury it.”

Ecolog’s report, which analysed dozens of peer-reviewed studies, stated: “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.”"

We need people to take this issue more seriously - the Government note possible dangers but seem to do nothing - too afraid of those big phone companies? Locally I've tried to raise the issue - in particular to curb use of mobiles in Glos schools - see my most recent letter here. Still little or no action from the County on this - why?

We should also not forget mobiles have an impact on the developing world - see my letter that was in The Ecologist magazine (Nov 2001) here. Also attempts to stop the marketing of phones to 4 year olds and under - see here. Plus Greens challenge various mast applications - see for example here and here.