Residents say mast should go
The Derbyshire Times 16.
CODNOR residents are demanding that a mobile telephone mast is taken down.
Planning permission for the mast near Codnor Market Place expired last year, but the 15ft pole is still standing.
An application to renew planning permission for the mast until December 2009 was made at the end of last year, but councillors deferred making a decision until further investigations had been carried out.
Now seven months later, no decision has been made and residents are calling for the mast to come down.
This week Amber Valley Borough Council said they were still looking into the legality of the mast remaining on the site.
Angry Mill Lane resident Shelia Jackson said: "It shouldn't take this long, it's taking forever to get the mast down."
At the planning meeting in November, councillors related back to a planning application approved earlier in the year for a trellis mast on the same site.
Councillors believed when they approved the trellis mast that it would reduce the number of individual masts on the site as mast sharing was possible.
However, phone company O2 claimed mast sharing was not an option, stating: "The lattice tower is not capable of supporting a third operator without further redevelopment."
Amber Valley's planning executive, Robert Reid, supported the deferral of the decision, adding: "There is merit in investigating whether the phone operators can go together on the new trellis mast."
Jessop Street resident Cliff Jones is angry with the delay, he said: "They are just dragging their feet. The mast should have been taken down months ago. We want it down and down now.
"Decisions about mast sharing should have been sorted before the lattice tower was granted planning permission."
By Stephen Sinfield
16 June 2005
CODNOR residents are demanding that a mobile telephone mast is taken down.
Planning permission for the mast near Codnor Market Place expired last year, but the 15ft pole is still standing.
An application to renew planning permission for the mast until December 2009 was made at the end of last year, but councillors deferred making a decision until further investigations had been carried out.
Now seven months later, no decision has been made and residents are calling for the mast to come down.
This week Amber Valley Borough Council said they were still looking into the legality of the mast remaining on the site.
Angry Mill Lane resident Shelia Jackson said: "It shouldn't take this long, it's taking forever to get the mast down."
At the planning meeting in November, councillors related back to a planning application approved earlier in the year for a trellis mast on the same site.
Councillors believed when they approved the trellis mast that it would reduce the number of individual masts on the site as mast sharing was possible.
However, phone company O2 claimed mast sharing was not an option, stating: "The lattice tower is not capable of supporting a third operator without further redevelopment."
Amber Valley's planning executive, Robert Reid, supported the deferral of the decision, adding: "There is merit in investigating whether the phone operators can go together on the new trellis mast."
Jessop Street resident Cliff Jones is angry with the delay, he said: "They are just dragging their feet. The mast should have been taken down months ago. We want it down and down now.
"Decisions about mast sharing should have been sorted before the lattice tower was granted planning permission."
By Stephen Sinfield
16 June 2005
Starmail - 17. Jun, 15:05
