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| Mobile phone giants plans to axe 2000 masts | |
| United Kingdom | Created: 8 Jun 2012 |
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Vodafone and O2 are to tear down thousands of mobile phone masts, offering hope to opponents of the ‘unsightly’ towers. The two telecoms giants unveiled plans to share their telephone mast networks, allowing them to dismantle around 1850 that will no longer be needed. The move is designed to save money and speed up mobile internet connections, but will also be welcomed by residents’ groups and health campaigners. ‘It’s absolutely wonderful news from an aesthetic angle,’ said Lynn Insley, 58, of Wishaw in the West Midlands. She is among Wishaw residents who believe that a mast may have been responsible for a ‘cancer cluster’, where a higher than average number of people developed cancers in the area around the site. Mrs Insley, a member of Sutton Coldfield Residents Against Masts (SCRAM), added that she began noticing other ill effects such as loss of balance and slurred speech after the mast was erected. ‘As someone who had the misfortune to be blasted by this equipment, I’d support anything that can done to shift these unsightly blots on the landscape,’ she said. Vodafone and O2 said they did not yet know which masts would be surplus to requirements, although it is likely that they will be in towns and cities where their networks overlap. But in remote rural areas where signal is lowest - known as ‘notspots’ - the firms are expected to apply for permission to erect new masts, raising the prospect of fresh battles with local opponents. A spokesman for Vodafone said the company’s masts operated within national and international safety standards. The company estimates that power levels at ground level next to a mast are typically around one thousandth of the limit set by regulators./ The World Health Organisation is due to begin fresh research into the link between masts and cancer rates this year. But the last study by the WHO in 2011 concluded that ‘no adverse health effects have been established as being caused by mobile phone use’. Jessica Harris, Cancer Research UK’s health information manager, said: ‘The level of non-ionising radiation that people are exposed to from mobile phone masts is substantially less than the amount people get from mobile phones themselves. ‘The evidence so far shows that mobile phones don’t seem to increase the risk of cancer - so base stations and masts are even less likely to do so.’ Some two-thirds of rejected planning applications for phone masts are turned down because of how they look, rather than for health reasons. But Sarah Wright, of campaign group Mast Sanity, pointed out that the WHO study also found that mobile phone mast radiation was in the same category of carcinogens as lead and fertiliser DDT. ‘On the face of it this is welcome but if you look at the detail it may not make much difference,’ she said. ‘If it’s mainly in cities then it won’t have much impact on health if you’re taking one mast down, but there are still lots of others. ‘From a health point of view it’s just fiddling around the edges.’ |
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| Click here to view the source article. | |
| Source: Daily Mail, Daily Mail Reporter, 07 Jun 2012 | |
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