A Families Story

On August 1st 1994, Orange mobile phone company erected the mast shown in the picture on the left. This mast lies 33 metres from the outer walls of our home and 2.3 metres from our boundary fence. The mast (left) is some 50 feet (15 metres) in height.

We were not consulted about the erection of the mast by the local authority, for when their planning committee met and discussed it on May 18 1994, the mast already had the right to be erected, by the default of the local authority not responding within 28 days of the receipt of the planning application from Orange. Even though the Local Planning Authority informed Orange, that it did not want this construction to go ahead. Orange completely ignored this and went ahead with the construction, regardless of the Local Planning Authority's wishes. After 7 years of campaigning, this mast is still standing there as a monument to the injustice of PPG8 and Orange, to all the residents.

At the time we were told by our member of Parliament, that even local authorities powers in these matters to determine their own planning requirements, are overridden. Consequently the value of our house has depreciated, if indeed we can sell it at all, as some mortgage lenders will not advance loans on properties near to power lines etc.

If it is that a buyer cannot be found when we want to move house, without selling the property at a considerable loss, my wife and I will be left with a family sized property to run and maintain into our old age.

Our property is set in a nice garden which was our leisure time occupation until August 1994 for now the fears of any risk to our health from the electromagnetic effects from the mast make us spend more time away from the property, only doing to the house and garden what is required to keep the property in good repair.

To add to the above, we are concerned about the effect of a lightning strike to the mast, dissipating its energy into our garden, for it appears that the earth tape is less than 40 centimetres from our boundary fence. The operators insist this conforms with BS6651, but to anyone who reads BS6651and the owner of the house is an Electrical Engineer, with over 40 years experience, the dangers of the step potential being lethal to humans and animals is highlighted and well known. To Add to this insult we where not even consulted about whether they can put the energy of a lightning strike into our land, land which is ours, paid for and registered in our name at the land registry.

The owner of the land who leased part of it to Orange for this mast, also had, at the time of the erection of the mast and it's being brought into service, a very large quantity of Liquid Petroleum gas bottles, of various sizes as shown in the photograph below. This Equipment at the base of the mast, is probably capable of igniting a gas leak (should one occur) from the full propane and Butane gas bottles adjacent. This is just another bad example of how the PPG8 'steamroller' legislation, even seems to override the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. The owner of the land adjacent to the mast, is a D.O.E. trained person, to be 'Authorised Person' to issue "Permits to Work" for Explosive locations, such as the above and Aviation fuel tanks, so considers the dangers to be real.

Note also from the photograph, the piece of wood, someone had to wedge in a gap between the mast and the fall arrest wire. This was done as a temporary measure, to stop the fall arrest wire from banging on the mast in high winds, this banging was a constant source of irritation to local residents, whenever the wind blew, a constant clanging all through the night could be heard on numerous occasions. The fall arrest wire is, as its name suggests, a means off arresting someone's fall, from the top of the mast. This was used by workmen from Orange during the hours of darkness one evening in October 1997, to carry out repairs or maintenance, during this, we residents had to endure a powerful beam of light from their cap-lamp, going all over our property, in our bedrooms, bathrooms, living rooms. This has happened again since, around Noon on 5th December 2000, two men climbed the mast to replace the omni-directional antennas equipment. Once again a complete invasion of our lives and privacy was perpetrated. These are just another examples of the "benefits" of living in the shadow of an Orange mast. The Future is certainly Bright for Orange, but not for the unfortunates who live in the shadow of their installations.

We took the matter to the National Ombudsman Service and were awarded a small sum by him for council maladministration. This award being an average of 1994/1995 percentage appeals success by the operators and is 48% of a figure the Local Authorities Estate Agent put on our property devaluation by the presence of the mast. So even though others have been proved to be at fault for the erection of this mast, they get away with a small token fine whilst the innocent's have to live in it's shadow. Is this Democracy ?

We have taken this matter to the European Court of Human Rights, for we feel our human rights have been violated by the above. We have had to fight very strongly through our M.E.P's first Philip Whitehead, then Michael Cashman and Liz Lynne, to get the matter before the commission to give it's opinion. We understood from Mr. Whitehead, that this was a time consuming process, however seven years down the line, this is still active before the Commission and after 7 years, we still await their findings, after continually updating them with fresh evidence and gaining the support of numerous others in the UK, we are hopeful that justice will prevail.