BBC New Online 31st may 2005

Mobile phone operators have disputed safety fears about masts

A vicar has angered parishioners by supporting a plan to erect a mobile phone mast on a church spire.

The congregation has collected 500 signatures calling on the church to scrap the plan, which they say is inappropriate at a consecrated site.

But the Rev Elaine Bardwell says the mast at St Michael and All Angels in New Marston, Oxford, would help raise much-needed church funds.

The Oxford diocese says it is a parish matter that must be decided locally.

'Modern church'

Opponents of the plan say they are also concerned about the possible health impact of a mast, although risks have been disputed by mobile phone operators.

Rev Bardwell told the BBC: "We are a modern building, we are a modern church, we live in the real world and we think it is a good place for the mast.

"We have had a series of public meetings and listened to all the views expressed and will be keeping a very close eye on the health and safety issues involved."

Anne Furtado, who lives near the church, said: "More people have signed that petition than go to the church on a Sunday.

"I don't understand how they cannot pay any attention at all to what the people who have signed think."

by Dominic Yeatman

This is local London

WORRIED parents claim drivers outside Snaresbrook Primary School will not be able to see children crossing the road if plans for a mobile phone mast are approved.

Phone company T-Mobile wants to erect a 9.7-metre mast and two base cabinets at the junction of Meadow Walk and Woodford High Road , 200 yards from the gates of the school.

Councillors and parents assembled at the site on Sunday, and conducted their own experiment replicating the impact of the cabinets which they say demonstrated the danger of the proposals.

Parent Nic Shastri, who has two children at the school, said: "We set up a large cardboard box to the size of the proposed cabinet and we had four children waiting to cross the road. If you were a driver waiting to turn in you wouldn't have seen them.

"Parents have to walk to school these days because there is a double yellow line in Meadow Walk patrolled by traffic wardens. We have had three recent deaths in Woodford Road and it's a notorious accident blackspot."

Telecom company Marconi is handling the application for T-Mobile and Wanstead MP Harry Cohen has written to it highlighting the objections.

Headteacher Dennis Murray said he had real concerns. He said: "There are two issues, potential health concerns and where they want to site it because it could obstruct drivers' vision. It's a health and safety issue and I can't believe that any company would consider putting one there."

A T-Mobile spokesman said: "T-Mobile understands there sometimes can be concerns when locating base stations in communities. As part of the pre-consultation process we're considering a number of options in the area and gathering feedback from local concerned parties."

A formal planning application has yet to be submitted to Redbridge Council and Marconi has given residents until May 31 to make comments on the proposals. Write to Jonathan Walton, Marconi APT, Blays House, Wick Road , Englefield Green, Egham, Surrey , TW20 OHJ .

dyeatman@london.newsquest.co.uk

Technology advances blamed by opponents

By Michael McHugh

Belfast Telegraph

30 May 2005

The number of mobile phone masts in Northern Ireland may increase dramatically following the introduction of new technology, industry representatives have warned.

Some experts anticipate a three or four-fold rise in the number of sites, but the phone companies' trade body insists that sites across the UK will increase by only around a tenth.

There has been widespread opposition across the province to the encroachment of the structures with some reports warning that the so-called Third Generation Technology (3G) which allows photos to be sent via cell phone could endanger health.

Peter Jones from ACTIX, which develops new wireless technology for mobile companies, warned at a recent conference that the number of masts could increase by three or four times their present number and this has sparked concerns about the health impact on people living near the sites.

Newry and Mourne Sinn Fein councillor Pat McGinn, a prominent anti-mobile phone campaigner, said: "These people who are telling me that they need these mobile masts because they have no coverage are now saying they need them to send photos of themselves to their friends.

"There's still a major concern about the whole health issue surrounding these mobile masts among many respected academics and until these are addressed these masts will be met with opposition."

Dutch scientists have found, in a study of 72 volunteers, significant levels of nausea, headaches and tingling sensations when the subjects were exposed to signals which mimicked the third generation mobile networks.

The Mobile Operators' Association estimates that by 2007 there will be 50,000 masts across the UK - a 5,000 increase on present levels - but adds that this complies with the Government licence conditions imposed to ensure that 80% of the population have coverage.

"There are now well over a million mobile phone subscribers in Northern Ireland," a spokeswoman said. "Without a network of base stations in place where people want to use their phones, they simply will not work.

"Any new base stations are subject to full planning in Northern Ireland."

Some mast sharing may help reduce the number of new sites needed but 3G technology is in its infancy and operators anticipate a substantial increase in the number of people using it.

The mobile companies' spokeswoman added that the advice from the National Radiological Protection Board found - drawing on the weight of scientific advice - that mobile technologies operating within the health and safety guidelines didn't cause illness.

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/story.jsp?story=642694

Lincolnshire Echo

10:30 - 30 May 2005

Mobile phone mast campaigners say they have been vindicated by an Australian ruling that masts should not be next to schools.

The Australian government has followed New Zealand , Italy , Sweden , Luxembourg and Salzburg in banning masts near schools, child care centres, hospitals and nurseries.

Bishop King Primary School in Kingsway, Lincoln, has a mast just metres away from its building, and the parents and teachers have been campaigning against it.

Headmaster David Tinsley said: "I think this just shows that other governments accept that there may be a risk with these masts, although sadly ours appears not to.

"The point is that nobody knows whether there is a risk or not.

"They may be perfectly safe, but on the other hand they may not, and if they are not then children are the most vulnerable to ill effects.

"We are baffled by this Government's attitude when its own reports have suggested that a precautionary approach should be adopted, and yet nothing is put into practice."

His frustration was echoed by parent Andrew Gill, who is a member of the phone mast committee.

"We would just like to see the Government and the council taking some responsibility for this," he said.

"At the moment all the council has to consider is how it looks, not whether it will affect the health of children.

"The Government's advice in the Stewart report is quite clear, yet nothing is done."

The mast is situated on top of the fire station in South Park, next door to Bishop King School.

It is even closer to the half-built new special school, which is scheduled to open next Easter.

"We don't want the next generation to be picking up the pieces if something does turn out to be wrong with these things," said Mr Gill, who lives in Kingsway.

Green MEP Caroline Jackson is pressuring the Government to follow Australia 's lead and ban mobile phone masts next to schools.

"Without it, the result has been fear and uncertainty as mobile phone masts have sprung up - often requiring no planning permission or even advance warning - on schools, hospitals and in densely populated areas," she said.

However, mobile phone operators insist there is no scientific basis for a ban on masts near schools.

A spokeswoman for the Mobile Operators' Association said: "Since 2000, Ofcom has undertaken more than 360 random audits of base stations near schools and hospitals.

"The measurements from these audits show that emissions levels from base stations are typically small fractions of the international health and safety exposure guidelines."

She said parents should be comforted by a National Radiological Protection Board report in January, which said measurements showed there was no scientific basis for establishing minimal distances between base stations and areas of public occupancy.

Write to Your View at the Lincolnshire Echo, Brayford Wharf East, Lincoln, LN5 7AT.

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LOBBYWATCH

+ TAVERNE BLASTED - "A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE AND A LOT OF BOMBAST ARE DANGEROUS"

Real scientist Margaret Cook demolishes pseudo-scientist and GM lobbyist Lord Dick Taverne's new book, The March of Unreason: Science, Democracy and the New Fundamentalism, in a scathing and brilliant review in the Guardian, Cook takes Taverne to task for the hectoring and irksome dogma of his writing.

EXCERPT:

In spite of his stated commitment to evidence-based science, much of his discussion is rant rather than reason.

There are regrettably a number of howlers. He attributes our health and longevity to modern medicine, whereas it owes much more to public health measures, sanitation, clean water, housing, diet. [GM WATCH comment: Here's a statistic for Taverne: "The results of seven years of research reviewing thousands of studies conducted by the NIA (Nutrition Institute of America) now show that medical errors are the number one cause of death and injury in the United States."

http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/2003/10/29/medical_system_is_leading_cause_of_death_and_injury_in_us.htm]

He states, "Food has never been safer or more carefully tested," when we have just had the most troubling food scare involving contamination of many different food products by the dye Sudan 1. He demolishes in scathing terms the fears linking radiation from mobile phones and masts to brain damage. Yet only two months ago, top scientists warned that children under nine should not use mobile phones as their brains absorb more radiation than adults' and the dangers are unclear.

He draws a rigid line between mainstream and alternative medicine, reluctantly admitting that an extract of St John's Wort might help depression, then countering this with a discussion of dire side effects. In fact, in a recent issue the BMJ, hypericum extract from this plant has been shown to be at least as effective as paroxetine for depression and better tolerated. The timing of these reports has not been kind to him, but they underline the hectoring dogma of his writing, which becomes increasingly irksome.

http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5059

Carole

Hockley, Essex


http://omega.twoday.net/topics/Wissenschaft+zu+Mobilfunk/

Environmental Health News

Tuesday, May 31 2005

Addenbrooke’s Hospital now has around 30 masts on the roof of its main ward block. Departments in close proximity to the masts include the maternity and breast units and the oncology centre. The masts, or base stations, are used for mobile phones, pagers, and the Tetra police radio system, which has also been linked to ill health.

Campaigners are outraged. Mast Sanity spokesperson Karen Barratt argued that the hospital should be looking to find ways to have masts removed from its premises, especially so given its responsibility to patients.

‘I find it extraordinary at a time when everyone is so worried about MRSA that a hospital should be opting to have all these masts on its roof. It is putting not only patients at risk but the surrounding population too,’ she said.

However an Addenbrooke Hospital spokesperson played down the masts, saying: ‘Like many other hospitals and organisations with high buildings, we accommodate masts for mobile phones and other devices on our roof. There are a total of 30 masts on the roof, four of which are used by the BBC, and the remainder by two mobile phone operators.’

She added: ‘We have seen no evidence to suggest that this practice is unsafe. But to ensure the safety of our patients, staff and visitors, we follow government regulations for health and safety and conform with the International Commission on Non-ionising Radiation Protection public exposure guidelines. ‘This includes,’ she said, ‘compelling any company which uses the space for a mast to have a survey done to demonstrate that it will not be exposing the public to risk as a result. ‘A report by the Radiocommunications Agency has shown that, at most, we are 45,000 times below the ICNIRP limit for radio-frequency emissions at the hospital.’

Tom Long, radio communications and planning officer at Cambridge City Council, who oversaw the phone companies’ applications for planning permission, said: ‘If anyone is concerned about emissions from the masts erected near the hospital we can arrange for an independent specialist to use a radiation monitoring meter there.’

However Dr Grahame Blackwell, an independent scientist who advises Mast Sanity, said: ‘The ICNIRP guidelines take no account of possible long-term non-thermal risks on the grounds that no such risks had at the time been officially “established”. But for how many years had smoking been widely recognised as a risk to health before that risk was officially “established”? Every one of the six studies to date on masts shows serious health effects.’ He added that a four-year seven nation EU-funded Reflex study, published last November, stated categorically that cancer-producing effects, at levels within ICNIRP guidelines, were ‘hard facts’. Dr Blackwell said: ‘It’s no longer true to claim that there are no known mechanisms by which such radiation could cause ill health.’

At Essex University , Prof Elaine Fox is carrying out research into the effects of masts. She said: ‘We simply don’t know at this stage what damage, if any, mobile phone masts cause but a precautionary approach has been recommended. In the meantime I am deeply concerned that a hospital should have not just one mast but 30.’

Dr Stacy Eltiti, senior research officer at the university, is also engaged in the research. She said: ‘Previous research into masts has been poorly conducted and has often resulted in inconsistent findings. Current research aims to correct this by testing a large number of individuals in well controlled studies. ‘However, these findings will not be available for some time. In the meantime, we should aim to minimise the general public’s levels of exposure to the masts.’

Around 45,000 mast sites have already been established around Britain and another 12,000 applications for sites are expected, to accommodate the new 3G technology. As Karen Barratt points out, ‘each site could have up to 20 masts on it’.

Warrington News 31st May 2005

THE war of words over a proposal to erect a mobile phone mast on a church tower in Orford Green is finally over after the church council decided to abandon the plans.

After months of heated debate between parishioners of St Margaret and All Hallows Church , residents and ward councillors, the church council agreed to scrap the plans, despite them being approved by the borough council's development control committee.

The community's argument centred upon the safety issues surrounding mobile phone masts in residential areas while the church stood to gain financially from the deal with T Mobile.

But last week, following a meeting with the church council, St Margaret's decided not to proceed with the controversial mast.

Now residents say they are keen to build bridges with the church and particularly the Reverend John Reed, vicar of St Margaret's.

Yoko Warburton, one of the residents who opposed the mast, said: "I feel that our message at last reached the church and the very people who make the decisions.

"I don't feel we 'won' because I don't want to think of it as some kind of battle between the church and residents.

"It was more a matter of getting them to change their viewpoint over ways of raising the church maintenance fund.

"Risking residents' health was definitely not the way forward.

"The way the church handled the issue from start to finish was all wrong and completely inappropriate.

"Nothing was said to the residents in the first place, hardly anyone was aware of what was going on and we weren't publicly notified but we should now move on from this and start working together."

Mike Hannon, ward and borough councillor, who opposed the proposal, said: "I am pleased that the church council has listened to the concerns of the community and taken a decision that will benefit the community at large."

The church declined to comment on the matter.

Norwich Evening News

31 May 2005 11:43

A Norwich MP is demanding tighter regulations for the siting of mobile phone masts after new research claimed people living close to them are exposed to dangerous levels of radiation.

Norwich North MP and cancer expert Ian Gibson today welcomed the latest study by Dr Gerd Oberfeld, an Austrian environmental medicine expert from Salzburg.

It found that radiation levels increased dramatically when people were in rooms close to mobile phone masts.

The study was carried out among 12 volunteers, aged 20 to 78.

It recorded brain waves using an electroencephalogram and when the volunteers were unknowingly exposed to mobile phone masts the levels of radiation increased from 26 microwatts to 3,327 microwatts.

The study found this had a dangerous effect on brainwaves and severely damaged health.

Dr Gibson, who has supported the Evening News's campaign to stop siting masts near schools and homes until it is conclusively proved they are safe, said today: "This is dramatic news. We will need to repeat it with a bigger number of individuals. But I do not find it surprising. The net is closing in on this industry which claims complete safety. I am sure the public will welcome this news and will increase the demands for government intervention on the siting of these masts."

He said he wanted the Government to take notice of the study by Sir William Stewart, which expressed the need to adopt a precautionary principle with regards to the siting.

"In two weeks time I will be meeting Yvette Cooper, the minister with responsibility for this industry and I will be urging her to give a public response to this research," Dr Gibson said.

"The Government has got to give the planning authorities the authority to ban these masts on health grounds," he added.

Karen Barratt, spokeswoman for Mast Sanity, the campaign group for more sensitive siting of phone masts, said: "There are many studies like this which indicate people do suffer ill effects when they are living near phone masts.

"The industry and the Government keep pretending that the evidence is anecdotal or people are suffering psychosomatic effects but nothing could be further from the truth. We have lots of evidence of people suffering ill effects when they don't even know there is a mobile phone mast in the area."

She said there was evidence of cancer clusters around mobile phone masts and the Government was ignoring the matter.

"At the moment there is total planning chaos. The mast phone operators can put them up where they like and local authorities are being bullied into submission to put them up in sensitive areas near to school's and people's homes."

Meanwhile, families in North Walsham are trying to bring legal action against mobile phone operator O2 over the siting of a mast on top of the police station in Yarmouth Road , which they say has caused people's health to deteriorate.

The Put Masts on Hold campaign was launched by the Evening News in December 2000 to stop the installation of mobile phone masts close to homes and schools until their safety was proved.

In September 2003 the Evening News published a map showing the location of every mast in Norwich .

The mobile phone industry has dismissed the findings of the latest study, saying an independent body did not certify the experiment.

We are encouraging our MP (Humphrey Malins, Conservative, Woking) to become more active in the Mast debate at Westminster, by asking him to do the following. Why not send a letter to your MP, to ask that he/she does the same:-

· Can you please join the All Party Parliamentary Group on Mobile Communications, a Parliamentary group set up to encourage debate on a range of mobile issues, bringing together relevant stakeholders including consumers, industry, Parliamentarians and pressure groups. ( http://www.apmobile.org.uk)

· Can you please support the Parliamentary Bills, such as the recent/current one by Andrew Stunel MP, Liberal Democrat, Hazel Grove, "Telecommunications Masts (Planning Control) Bill", which will tighten planning controls on the siting of mobile masts. This has similar content to the 2004 Bill put forward by Richard Spring MP, Conservative, West Suffolk. Please also actively encourage support for this bill and similar future bills in Parliament.

· Can you please support the Early Day Motions against masts and help engage ‘masts and their health risks & suppressed research’ as urgent topics for discussions and parliamentary action. Currently there is EDM 67, MOBILE PHONE MASTS, 17.05.2005 by Caroline Spelman, Conservative, MP for Meriden and Shadow Secretary of State for Local Government Affairs and Communities ( http://www.carolinespelman.com ):-

"That this House notes that industry sources have recently indicated that 3G technology will require a substantial increase in the number of mobile phone masts, with as many as four times the present number, suggesting up to 200 more masts in every constituency; believes that the current planning process in England is inadequate, failing to consider local, environmental and safety concerns; observes that the Government is reviewing planning regulations for masts and that tougher protection is already in place in Scotland and Northern Ireland; and calls on the Government to introduce full planning permission for all masts, including Network Rail and TETRA masts, and to allow health concerns to be taken into account near homes, schools and hospitals."

Please also actively encourage support for this Early Day Motion and similar Early Day Motions in Parliament.

Regards,

Harelands Against the Masts
http://www.nomasts.org.uk

The latest Vodafone advert: "talk for 60 minutes and pay for three". Is this the true price of an hour at a time on a mobile phone?

Sir William Stewart should receive our objections for this as much as about the frog, and it should go to Patricia Hewitt as sec. of state for health:

What a strange state of affairs.

1) Phones are safe so SAR should not matter, but low SAR would seem to be preferred.

2) Radiation from masts isn't harmful, but schools (though not kids' houses) should be out of range.

3) The beam of greatest intensity has no definition in relation to power, frequency or technology, nor antenna type, but it is used to define the degree of consultation required with schools, though not residences.

4) Phones apparently are not be marketed at children, but the youth ringtone market is huge.

5) Hands free kits are recommended, even though there is supposedly no harm from applying phones to the head.

6) Hands free must by law be used in vehicles, but even the latest T-mobile sponsored research said don't use one at all when at distance from a mast or without a vehicle-mounted external antenna.

7) Now Vodafone says talk for an hour, yet the T-mobile study http://www.tetrawatch.net/media/mut_160505.pdf said keep calls short.

And I just reminded myself of the NRPB "Stewart 2" (p103):

"Although the Programme Management Committee wanted to support research in this area [children being more vulnerable to signals] during the first phase of the MTHR programme, volunteer studies were felt to be ethically unacceptable, and research was consequently limited to work on the assessment of age-related changes in dielectric properties of tissue."

-- like the business of "you can't erect a mast for the purposes of experimentation into the chronic effects of exposure on a population" for similar ethical reasons.

Since the live experiments would be unethical, let's just not call it an experiment and refuse to acknowledge the observations that might make it look like one.

Andy

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I challenged Mike Clark at Dorset on his reply to the lady whose young daughter had the rare complaint. He stated that no studies using children could be undertaken as they were "unethical". However, the Draper Report (yet to be published?) must be considered to be an experiment using children as the effects which were established were solely on the likelihood of children living near to power lines developing leukaemia - over 30 years??? How many children were used in this experiment for this Government to then ignore the findings?

Sylvia

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Q&A on the “Draper Report”
http://www.emfs.info/expert_QandA.asp

On 10 February 2005, Melanie Johnson, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health, answered a question from Ian Gibson MP about the “Draper Report”:

“A draft paper by Dr. Draper of Childhood Cancer Research Group at Oxford University into possible links between power lines and childhood leukaemia was submitted to a scientific journal and officials in the Department in November 2004. In accordance with the usual practice, publication will follow the appropriate peer review process and the publication date rests with the publishers. It would be inappropriate to comment on unpublished data, but we will ask the National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB) to consider the results when published.” Full answer:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200405/cmhansrd/cm050210/text/50210w18.htm#50210w18.html_sbhd1

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Children living near powerlines are more likely to get cancer
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/542938/

Childhood leukaemia risk doubles within 100 metres of high voltage power lines
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=13440

BBC change their tune on leukaemia, newspapers take up the flawed conclusions
http://www.powerwatch.org.uk/news/20050427_infection.asp



http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=Draper

The letters to the Bath newspaper about Mr Dolan were a good thing to do - maybe it would help if we did something similar with the Planning Inspectorate?

With the Inspectorate overturning so many mast applications refused at local level? With the complaints route against Inspectorate decisions being so expensive and user-unfriendly, people power seems to have become the only way left for ordinary folk to fight back and win.

Why, oh why, won't the Inspectorate listen to the general public and the local Councils who are honestly and lawfully representing local communities concerns and wishes?

Why is the Inspectorate awarding punishing high costs against some Councils for properly carrying out their lawful duties to their local communities and yet not punishing others?

I think it may be time for all those suffering from a poor Inspectorate decision to take direct action and write in huge numbers to the Chief Executive at the Planning Inspectorate to complain about poor decisions and the difficult complaints system - where masts are concerned, there must be literally hundreds of thousands of dissatisfied people. At a time when banks and other large service industries are regularly asking customers for feedback on the quality of service, it seems wrong there is no easy way for the public to show dissatisfaction of the Inspectorate's performance and service.

If the Planning Inspectorate was a private firm accountable to the general public - there would have to be a faster, easier user-friendly direct complaints system, a system that gave the opportunity to review both the evidence provided and have the power to reverse a poor decision.

I think it is wrong that the Inspectorate restrict what you can complain to them about, i.e. the Inspector's opinion. I do not see how this can be in any way moral or democratic when it is the Inspector's singular personal opinion that matters most when he/she overturns a democratically made local council/community decision!

Jane

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Jane,

Thank you for this (and to Sylvia and Sandi for your subsequent comments). The trouble is that the Planning Inspectorate has no remit outside planning law and government policy with respect to telecommunications installations. Common law and democracy simply do not enter the equation.

I know that several people have written to the Quality Assurance Unit at the Inspectorate expressing their concerns about the Sidlesham Inquiry, and more of that in a moment, but such action won't have any impact. The Inspectorate is an advertised instrument of government; it emphasises its impartial status and that it is apolitical but there is little doubt that it follows the agenda of the government of the day. Whatever the position hitherto, this is patently evident in the context of the general 'politicisation' of the Civil Service since New Labour came to power in 1997.

At the Sidlesham Inquiry, we introduced rock-solid evidence from Grahame Blackwell and Ian Sharp on the differences between Tetra and mobile phone technology and covered both biological effects and electrosensitivity in considerable detail. The evidence of Collins, the Airwave technical witness, was shallow, glib and pitiful - and was systematically taken apart during some 3 hours of cross-examination by our extremely well-briefed barrister. The man ended up a gibbering wreck. We introduced three local residents to express their fears about Tetra 'on their doorsteps' and submitted documentary evidence of the very poignant concerns of local people already suffering disabilities. One family are tenants of the landowner and live 50 metres from the proposed site - they are concerned about their epileptic son and, notwithstanding their precarious circumstances, decided to speak out against the proposal. The result was a suggestion by the landowner that they look for alternative accommodation during the New Year - in a note appended to a Christmas Card. So how did the Inspector, Paul Griffiths, deal with all this?

Firstly, he itemised Grahame and Ian's evidence within three short paragraphs - and then summarised by saying that, "Material was adduced by the appellant's technical witness suggesting the opposite....on the balance of evidence before me, I consider that mobile phone technology in its widest sense or Tetra signal characteristics in particular, have no direct, harmful effects". This is an absolute travesty considering the evidence presented. He goes on to say, "I also heard evidence from Mrs ....whose son is epileptic..and there is concern that the installation could trigger seizures. Under cross-examination, the appellant's technical witness accepted the presence of anecdotal evidence that radiation can have this effect ....However, this can only be speculative.... In any event, Mrs... has been given notice to quit....so the situation she is concerned about will not arise".

Our barrister did a very good job for us. But he is a professional lawyer who, with the dice loaded against us, had no illusions about the prospect of success. That said, a synopsis of his comments on Griffiths' Decision Letter is as follows: "The outcome was, unfortunately, perhaps to be expected, but the letter is a pretty poor consideration of the issues. We came close to winning. However, the decision is carefully crafted to reduce the weight to be applied.....issues of weight are difficult to challenge in decision-making, which is one reason why I think the decision letter has been written with legal or other advice. There are significant flaws/omissions in the decision letter, in particular .... (several examples). I would advise that you have good grounds to challenge. The issue is whether you have the stomach/funds for a further round of the battle (noting that even if the decision is quashed, the appeal will have to be decided again)".

Everything is stacked against local democracy in these matters and the Inspectorate has absolutely no cohesive structure for conducting appeals - as you have said. It amounts to the luck of the draw.

Last year's judgement by the European Court of Human Rights on the legality of courts martial in the Royal Navy was quite specific. Given its conclusions and findings, there is absolutely no way in which that same Court would consider the Planning Inspectorate to be a lawful body. But we have to get the issue to the European Court - and that means first exhausting the domestic process.

Sorry to ramble on. I applaud the suggestion of inundating the chief executive with letters of complaint about his organisation - but bear in mind that such people are civil servants beholden to the government of the day. Don't expect too much!

David B

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I have been doing so for the past 6 months. I have been corresponding with Prescott's office. The Deputy Planning minister Yvette Cooper has been responding with the usual standard responses i.e. Stewart and ICNIRP/NRPB prove every thing is ok. I have of course been quoting what these reports actually say and she has now given up and got the Dept of Health to respond to me with the usual "no evidence of ill health" argument. I have sent them the ill health evidence.

In my letters to the Deputy Planning Minister I originally said that there would be 100,000 masts sited throughout Britain. There was an extremely patronising response to this with the usual 50,000 number quoted. Now of course since then Orange alone estimated they will need 50,000 masts throughout Britain for 3G (April's Radiation Research newsletter) s o if they need 50,000 for 3G then a total of 200,000/250,000 would n ot seem unreasonable. I wrote back to Cooper in a similar patronising fashion and asked her if she would care to revise the Government estimate following Orange's recent announcement. I received a response dated 25 May 2005 from somebody called Iain Clark, Policy Adviser, Planning Development Control Policy (Office of Deputy PM) saying that "Neither this Department nor Orange is aware of any announcement which contradicts these figures". I understand Yvette Cooper is no longer the Deputy Planning Minister but if anybody would like to take up the mast numbers issue with Iain Clark, his email address is iain.clark@odpm.gov.uk . Seems like they want to keep a lid on the mast numbers issue. I am continuing my letter campaign and always cc my MP.

John Elliott