Please give your thoughts on phone mast concern

[hastalavista]

Hello everyone,
Please can you give me your thoughts. I am buying a house. Last year, about 116 feet away, there were proposals to put up a 15 metre telecommunications pole and large base units. However, this proposal was rejected due to:

Not complying with sections 2-6 of Part A.2 of Schedule 2, Part 16 Town and country planning.

I've looked this up but I'm not really getting gist of what it means. Think its because the pole would be too big?

Anyway, the reason I am concerned is because I'm scared that the telecommunications company obviously see a need to put a mast in the area due to signal weakness or whatever, and if they cant put it there maybe they will put it somewhere else in the vicinity nearer the house that I am buying.

I could actually live with the mast being situated in the place it was originally planned for but my worst nightmare would be buying a house and then getting a mast put in literally outside my front door. The house I'm buying will be a massive purchase and I'm nervous about it.

I've emailed the planning dept at the council but they just replied saying 'read the link to the sections 2-6...' etc. I know it's a bit thick but I don't really understand those rules. Is there anyone on here who wouldn't mind breaking it down for me? anyone who works in planning who can tell me whether, in their opinion, the rules that pertained to the road next door will be relevant to my street? I dont think the road next door is a conservation area but it is full of big attractive expensive houses, a bit nicer than 'mine'.

Please can anyone help, especially anyone with experience of such things. They wont let me call them. Thank you very much

If you want connected phones they need to put masts somewhere.

The chances are that a mast of different proportions will end up there in due course, as they may well redesign the mast and put in a new application. whether it’s not one will end up any closer to you is totally down to whether or not the land is available to them in a different location.

On the whole I’ve no issue with masts, but I would hate to be staring at a big one through my windows night and day, and some people will also be put off because of health woo.

If it's the health woo, then aren't you supposed to actually be safest right next to/immediately under the mast? In any case, I wouldn't give it much thought if the house is fine otherwise.

I'm guessing that the development is one that doesn't require full planning permission, but can be provided as permitted development. However, for some types of development, the applicants have to ask the Council whether 'prior approval' is required - a process where the Council can decide upon elements of the proposal rather than the principle of the development itself. However, the legislation you quote doesn't quite make sense to me.
If you give me the Council name, and the exact application number I can have a look at the inline documents and see if I can see what's happened.

@hastalavista I've DM'd you 🙂

A planning application has been granted by the council to erect a 25m phone mast a similar distance from our house, despite many neighbours objecting. It’s to resite some units which are located on a nearby tall chimney. So there may already be telecommunications equipment nearby anyway- which renders the health arguments invalid.
It’s frustrating but it seems there’s nothing you can do, we couldn’t appeal against a granted application. They can literally pop up anywhere if you have any empty land nearby. I guess more and more masts will appear with 5G etc.
We’re planning on selling our house at some point in the future and I’m
not overly concerned about resale ability, but I won’t know if it’s a problem until a buyer comes across it.

Thank you all

The sheer volume of new 5g masts is a big concern to me, they are literally going up everywhere at the minute 😔