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PLANS have been entered for a 12 metre telecommunications mast in the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty at Warkworth. Orange Mast Personal Communications has submitted an application with Alnwick District Council for a site off the U3043 road to Warkworth dunes. It is for a pole supporting two antennae and a single transmission dish supported by equipment cabinet. A resident of Amble contacted the Gazette fearing the impact of the mast on the AONB. Sarah Charlton, of Gloster Park, said: "I just wonder how Amble would feel about that. It will not look quite so attractive will it. I thought AONBs were supposed to be protected from that sort of thing." A spokesman for Orange said: "The area of Warkworth currently has very poor Orange mobile phone coverage, we have a responsibility to our customers to try and improve that coverage. "Warkworth is a very difficult area to try and find an area to house a mobile phone mast with the fact that it is in and AONB and a Site of Special Scientific Interest. "Orange has its hands tied on the type of site we can find, we have tried to find a site which is as environmentally friendly as possible and that will cause as little problems as possible within the AONB. "We are sympathetic to people's views on this." A spokeswoman for the district council confirmed that the site is within the AONB and heritage coast. The main issues surrounding its determination are site, scale and design. At 12 metres, the mast is at the lower end of the scale with most being at least 15. The closing date for comments or objections is March 10.

03 March 2006

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