Alan Duncan MP, the Shadow Trade and Industry Spokesman appeared yesterday, 6th June
2007 on the Daily Politics Show. He discussed Jasper Carrott's excellent film about Mobile
Telephone Masts and Network Rail.
Much of what Alan Duncan said was factually incorrect. It was an incredibly poor performance by a front-bench spokesman from the Conservative Party.
Alan Duncan (AD)said,
"The Network Rail thing is
probably for internal communications ... for all their own signalling
so you can separate that for a moment from phone operators like
Vodafone and T-Mobile"
AD is wrong
to claim that the Network Rail's masts are NOT being used by or for
Mobile Phone Operators - UltraMast, the forerunner of the company now
rolling out the Network rail masts, proudly said on its website that
they would “offer phone operating companies the ability to rapidly
enhance their network coverage by implementing a quick mast roll-out
plan across the country in locations that have not been previously
accessible to them.” ( sadly the original website is gone, but the
quote still exists
here
) And the mast that Jasper Carrott showed us certainly had multiple
transmitters on it - certainly more than we would expect just for
signalling purposes.
AD: "
I've
found, I've had lots of constituency cases and by enlarge they [the
Mobile Phone Operators] will move them after consultation, they'll do
mast sharing, they do not put them near schools and they have
become increasingly cooperative in working out where they are sited.
I've had a lot of success in getting them moved."
AD is wrong to say that Mobile Phone Operators will move the site of
a proposed mast in consultation with locals - in our experience and all
the people we are in contact with, this hardly ever happe
ns. The
three masts near to two campaigners have not been moved away despite so-called
'consultation' and a hard fight by residents not to have the masts put
up so near to housing. Another lady's fight to get the mast moved away from the local school took 10 years of
hard fighting. This mast, incidentally, was erected "under cover of
night and without consultation with parents or local residents". See here .
AD also contradicted himself by saying that masts were not sited by
schools, then back tracked when challenged by Jasper Carrott - who
mentioned a mast overlooking a local school in Knowle, Birmingham, to
say "
I'm not saying [that] there're not any [Mobile Phone Masts near schools]".
There are hundreds of examples where this does happen, probably
thousands - as BBC 3's "
3 Investigates"
discovered over 18 months ago. As you can see, London has a large
number of schools which Mobile Telephone Masts have been erected close t
o. All the four masts local to us overlook primary schools and their playing fields.
AD is, in our opinion and experience, completely wrong to state that the
Operators are increasingly cooperative regarding the siting of masts.
In our own experience and the experience of many people we have been in
contact with over the siting of masts, the Mobile Phone Operators have
never been cooperative regarding mast siting and, indeed, they are
actually becoming more arrogant and appear to be resorting to ever more
devious means to get their masts erected.
AD said "
...basically
it's down to Planning, it's not the Government saying masts go here,
there and everywhere. If it's [the Mobile Telephone Mast] under 10
metres there are not many [Planning] restrictions, if they're over 10
metres there are lots and increasingly they [the Mobile Phone
Operators] are very good at consulting local people, sharing masts and by enlarge most of the network is now complete anyway."
AD was incorrect to say that there are different regulations for
masts over and under 10m - the height cut-off point for full planning
is over 15m - most get the go ahead automatically belo
w 15m - or by
stealth under the 56 day time limit. I am disappointed that you don't
know such regulations as the man who has introduced a
Private Members
bill to reduce roadside clutter - a good proportion of which is made up of Mobile Phone Masts under 15m!
With the 2007 deadline for 3G roll-out before OFCOM issues penalties
for any coverage gaps, the number of new masts is currently
ACCELERATING. AD is wrong to say that the network (roll-out) is nearly complete.
Network Rail, Wi-fi and WiMax roll-outs are increasing this
acceleration.
You said "
...but I
think that the combination Jasper's woven together of a sort of
conspiracy theory based on profit just goes a little bit too far to be
convincing"
Lets face it, the Government were
happy to take the cigarette taxes for 57 years after the first smoking
health concerns were raised before introducing the smoking ban. Many people believe that they
are equally willing to ignore the health issues with mobile phones,
masts and similar for as long as they can, as long as they get their
tax revenue.
Network Rail
