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SAVE Our School campaigners took their fight to Holyrood today.

A bus-load of parents from Pollok and Carnwadric travelled to Parliament to hand over a 2000-signature petition.

They also staged a demonstration in a bid to persuade the First Minister to hold an inquiry into Glasgow City Council's pre-12 education consultation.

Protesters are angry at the closures of St Edmund's Primary in Pollok and Carnwadric Primary.

Susan Green, 41, whose daughter Erin is in P6 at St Edmund's, said: "We still feel strongly that feelings in the community have been ignored."

The protest coincides with today's stage one debate on the Scottish Schools (Par-ental Involvement) Bill.

Last month, St Edmund's parents removed their kids from the school one afternoon in protest. That same week, Carnwadric parents staged an all-night sit-in.

Last week world famous psychic Uri Geller backed parents in their fight.

Uri, who shot to fame in the 1970s by using mindpower to bend spoons, is supporting the bid to stop the new school being built near a mobile phone mast.

Carnwadric and Arden primaries are to be merged at a new 360-pupil school in Arden just a few hundred yards from a mast.

Uri told the Evening Times: "It is outrageous. I certainly wouldn't build a school near a mast."

Meanwhile, parents at St Edmund's in Pollok hope to enlist a multi-millionaire entrepreneur. Tycoon Paul Green, whose firm Retail Property Holdings is behind the massive new Silverburn shopping complex, has been urged to back their fight.

22/02/06

http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/5049212.shtml

22/02/2006 - 19:29:27

Up to 600 local residents are protesting in south Co Dublin tonight over a controversial mobile phone mast.

The telecoms structure on Shankill Garda Station will accommodate up to 12 mobile phone antennae but locals claim there has been no consultation with them and are protesting against its construction.

Three schools and two residential developments are within 500m of the mast, which is being built by telecoms firm Vilicom.

The issue was raised at the Oireachtas Environment Committee in Leinster House earlier today with OPW officials.

Local TD Ciaran Cuffe complained that current regulations allow for a mast to be replaced, and for up to 12 additional antennae to be placed on it, without public consultation.

However OPW commissioner David Byers insisted that the mast complied with relevant health and safety regulations.

He said the project was similar to others at other Garda stations throughout the state under the Transforming State Assets Programme.

He told the Committee that the closer mobile phone users are to a mast, the safer radiation levels will be.

“The further away your handset is from your antennae when you’re making a call, the more powerful your handset has to be to get to the antennae,” he said.

“If you had a concern, I would have thought that you would be more worried about a transmitter too close to your ear than an antennae several hundred yards away.

“The more extra masts there are out there, the less powerful the handset has to be to reach them.”

Dun Laoghaire Rathdown Co Council had previously asked the OPW to stop work on the project over residents’ concerns that it didn’t have planning permission.

However the Council confirmed earlier this month that the development was legal as it was a replacement of an original structure that had secured planning.

http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/story.asp?j=173663292&p=y73663998

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Vodaphone said masts were needed if people wanted phone coverage

A councillor has condemned plans by mobile phone giant Vodafone to erect a communications mast outside a burger restaurant in Aberystwyth.

Paul James said he was concerned that people's health could be affected by the structure which is expected to be about 12 metres high.

He added that it would be too close to homes, schools and businesses.

Vodafone said that the firm operated within set health guidelines regarding masts.

Omega read "Base Stations, operating within strict national and international Guidelines, do not present a Health Risk?" under: http://omega.twoday.net/stories/771911/

A spokeswoman added that if people wanted to use mobile phones then masts had to be located nearby.

Last year, Mr James objected to a temporary Hutchinson 3G mobile phone mast in Aberystwyth that had been erected near homes and schools without planning permission.

The company was eventually forced to dismantle it after Ceredigion Council turned down a retrospective planning application in October.

Close to the site of the proposed mast in Aberystwyth
The site, next to a burger restaurant, backs on to houses in Aberystwyth

The latest controversy surrounding mobile phone masts in the town, centres on an area known locally as Parc-y-Llyn in Llanbadarn Fawr.

Mr James said: "The site is in close proximity to three schools, together with a considerable number of domestic residences and businesses. One of these businesses having this mast situated right outside its premises.

"All these have the potential of being affected and it certainly is important that they learn more about this development."

He added that people were still concerned about health issues and until there was conclusive evidence that masts were safe "we have to take a cautionary approach".

But Jane Frapwell of Vodafone said: "If we want to use mobile phones, and lots do, we have to have masts nearby."

She added: "The further you are from a mast the harder the handset has to work and thus the higher levels of electromagnetic fields, if it's electromagnetic fields Mr James is concerned about."

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Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/mid_/4739062.stm

Feb 21 2006

MOBILE phone giant Vodafone wants to disguise a 36-foot high radio mast as a wooden telegraph pole - and paint it green - in a bid to appease protesters.

But neighbours in Dark Lane, Tilehurst, say it will still be an eyesore and pose a threat to their children's health.

The company had an appli-cation for a mast on the same site turned down last year after West Berkshire Council received a 105-signature petition and 21 letters complaining it would be incongruous in a residential area.

But its revised application lops 35 inches off the original height and guarantees the mast will resemble standard telegraph poles in Dark Lane - and be coloured green to blend in with the trees.

Ruth Harding, a 40-year-old nursery nurse, whose Prince William Drive home backs onto the site, said: "Every time I sit out in the garden I am going to see it there.

"I wish they could just put it somewhere that is less obtrusive."

Neighbour Sarah Blake, a 35-year-old housewife, said: "It is just a worry and I am particularly concerned for the safety of my children because you just don't know what damage the mast can cause.

"I also have a nephew in remission from leukaemia and we just wouldn't risk bringing him here when even the doctors are of the opinion that the radiation could do him harm."

The application was discussed last week by members of the West Berkshire Council's eastern area planning committee, who objected to the plan.

Tilehurst Parish Council chairwoman Jean Gardner said: "We don't see what has changed since the previous application. The pole would still be the focus of people's bedroom windows."

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A group of Palmers Green residents have resurrected their campaign to block plans to place a mobile phone mast in Hedge Lane.

Enfield Council rejected T-Mobile's application to erect a mast up to 9.7metres high. However the mobile phone giant is now appealing against the decision.

Residents claim the mast would spoil the character of the area and as its base would be on the pavement, it would leave pedestrians and wheelchair users with little room to manoeuvre.

The protests are being co-ordinated by housewife Anne-Marie Mustaka-Anderson who lives with her family in a house near the proposed site.

She said: "Residents are really angry. A lot of people knew the council had rejected the application but not that T-mobile had appealed. It's already a very busy road without this base being there."

The appeal is currently being considered by the Government's Planning Inspectorate. A decision is expected in April.

12:05pm today

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http://www.enfieldindependent.co.uk/news/localnews/display.var.693138.0.phone_mast_campaign_stepped_up.php

RESIDENTS are claiming that a recent decision by An Bord Pleanala in Edenmore opens up the prospect of mobile telephone masts being installed in the heart of residential areas without any planning permission.Local residents in the Woodbine, Millwood Park, and the Edenmore Crescent areas, are outraged by the decision to grant permission for mobile phone antennae at St Monica's GAA Club in Edenmore. Protests over the erection of the mobile phone masts took place at the site last summer. However, An Board Pleanala has now ruled that an application by the local GAA club to install a telephone mast on its floodlights is exempt from the need for planning permission. The decision by An Bord Pleanala follows a directive issued by the then Minister for the Environment, Noel Dempsey, in 2001. The directive allows for certain exemptions to the planning laws for the erection of mobile phone masts on structures such as lamp posts. But residents claim that the decision completely undermines guidelines on masts in the recent Dublin City Development Plan. The aim of these guidelines was to prevent masts from being erected near schools or residential areas.

However, Kieran Wright, local residents' spokesperson, said the phone masts were now erected in close proximity to two schools and their fears were mainly related to health issues.

“I have a 10-year-old son who I've had to move from his bedroom because he's so worried about the impact of the phone masts,” he said. “It's a totally cosmetic exercise, of course. “It's also the situation that local kids go to a school which is right beside the phone masts. They then go home to a house which is right beside the phone masts, so they are subjected to any possible ill effects for a total 24 hours.” Mr Wright claimed that the rights of the local Edenmore community have now been completely overrun by big business concerns. “You work hard to get your own little house together and then suddenly a massive structure like this is just landed on your doorstep and there appears to be very little you can do about it,” he said. “It's very frustrating.” Dublin North Central TD, Richard Bruton (FG), said that as a result of the ruling, the first place telephone companies will look to is local sports grounds for the erection of antennae.

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Children and mobile phones
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/1063256/

Outrage has greeted plans for another mobile phone mast in Middleton. One resident warned this week that the proposed additional structure would be a further step towards the destruction of the area's character.

O2 has issued a prior notification to Arun District Council that it intends to put in a 15 metre high mast disguised as a plastic wood effect telegraph pole on the verge next to the Buckingham Court sheltered housing scheme in Elmer Road.

The mast would have three 3G antennae enclosed within it and would be completed by an equipment cabinet on the ground.

One of the five sycamore trees on the site will be chopped down to make way for it.

Middleton man Mike Pepper, whose home in Tudor Close will be affected by another planned mast in the Southern Water compound in Middleton Road, said the accumulated impact of the masts was ripping apart the area's traditional appearance.

Full report in the February 16 issue of the Bognor Regis Observer.

20 February 2006

http://www.chichestertoday.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=450&ArticleID=1354789

Published: 17th February 2006

GIVE us a push... Hare and Hounds landlord Stephen Shepherd gives Alistair Fitton a helping hand from the pub car park.

IT’S a mystery that has got motorists in Wardle scratching their heads.

They are trying to find out what it is that is preventing them from starting their cars in the vicinity of the Hare and Hounds pub.

Vehicles have been affected in the pub’s car park on Ramsden Street and nearby in East Street.

Drivers switch on the ignition and the immobilisers immediately become jammed.

They claim this strange phenomena began 18 months ago, about the same time as a mobile phone mast was erected in the grounds of Birch Hill.

Frustrated Ramsden Street resident Alistair Fitton said: "One night mine, the landlady’s and another man’s car just wouldn’t start. The immobiliser on all three cars had mysteriously frozen.

"Ever since then pub regulars and six of my neighbours have been having the same problem."

They have now come up with a back-breaking solution – a free push into the corner of the car park, where a bottle bank just happens to be in line with the mast.

Mr Fitton is unable to park near his home and now leaves his car at the bottom of East Street.

He said "I was driving my father’s MG and I completely forgot about the problem.

"I then had to push the heavy car down the street to get it to start – I nearly put my back out. As I’ve been doing it for the last 18 months, I am getting used to it."

A spokesman for Orange said: "The Orange mobile phone network operates at a frequency of between 1800 and 2100 Mhz and no other technology is permitted to operate at that frequency.

"My advice to the drivers is for them to take the cars to the garage and get the immobiliser checked out.

"The answer to the mystery may lie elsewhere."

Technical whizz, Howard Stapleton, thinks the solution may lay with an amateur radio enthusiast or the new Tetra police communications system.

Telecommunications regulator Ofcom said that every so often this type of problem emerges with immobilisers and electronic key fobs.

Spokesman Simon Bates said: "The new mast may or may not be the cause, but it’s likely the immobilsers are of an inferior quality and can’t cope with the interference.

"We advise anyone affected to call Ofcom on 020 7981 3000 and we will be happy to investigate the matter.

"We may find that we can explain the problem and take action." Shaun Almond

First published by the Rochdale Observer

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