Campaigning with Neil Morrissey

Joined Lynne Featherstone MP campaigning with Neil Morrissey and others against an inappropriate mobile phone mast a protest against a new mobile phone mast on Crouch End Reservoir, which is on Mount View Road. Once more the Goliath of the mobile phone mast people (this time Hutchison 3G) is crushing the David of local residents and campaigners against its siting.

And the siting is wrong. It is within 20 metres of bedroom windows, within 200 metres of nursery school and its ugly and 30 metre being is to be placed ruining a lovely view out across London (currently unobstructed). Oh and it is in a conservation area.

Now yes, we (nearly) all use mobiles. But this is about both the location – in appropriate – and about the precautionary principle. This mast would both ruin a lovely view and site and also would be very close to young children at school.

So – Haringey Council did turn it down. But the big boys appealed and won – as they do. And this application will beget other applications. The local campaign group led by Robin Derham and with huge local support – including Men Behaving Badly star Neil Morrissey – has done everything they can. But one last ditch attempt to get Hutchison to see reason (or the law) is the submission of an appeal for a judicial review. The case has been filed and put together – and they await (legal) Counsel’s opinion as to chance of winning. It will cost the earth – and it isn’t right that local residents should have to fight these Goliaths, whose pockets are so deep and who act like steamrollers over local people’s wishes.

The planning system isn’t right. It has a presumption in favour of the developer and even if the developer loses then the developer can appeal. But if the developer wins, then the objectors don’t get to appeal (except in extreme and expensive cases of judicial review). (I’ve written in more detail about this topic before).

So – I am also going to try and get the Chief Executive of Hutchisons to meet with me and the key campaigners to see if persuasion (even compassion) might beat in the chest of the mighty mobile magnate.

0 thoughts on “Campaigning with Neil Morrissey”

This is a fascinating story.I’m not going to query the business about ruining lovely views of London, although that sounds a little odd to me, but I am quite amazed at the implied campaign here to ban mobile phones.Of course you understand that the mast operates in exactly the same way and at the same frequencies as the phones do. Because a mast may be talking to many phones, the effective power is about 50 times that of a phone, but because of the inverse square law, the two are equivalent when you are about 7 times as far from the mast as the phone. (Seven squared is about 50. You can check these figures with the ‘big boys’.) So being within 20 metres of one is like being within 3 metres of an operating phone, (like sitting near to someone using one on the bus or train) – and to actually put one of these devil-devices right against your head – deadly!Worse, the further from the base-station the phone is, the more power it transmits – all the way up to 2 Watts. So if you don’t have any base-stations nearby, those phones your kids are using have to ‘shout’ to reach with all the lethal power of a two Watt light bulb. Right next to their heads!I suggest your best argument to the mobile phone company is as follows. Because the phones are far deadlier than the masts, it makes no sense to oppose the mast unless you oppose phones even more, and therefore they’re banned from the area. And since none of the residents ever use mobiles, there is no point in putting a mobile phone mast there, as it would never actually transmit.I realise an MP must represent the views of their constituents, however well founded or otherwise they may be, but in this case I feel it is your duty to warn them of the similar dangers of mobile phones, RF TV senders, wifi networks, TV and local radio transmissions, police and ambulance radios, microwave ovens, and indeed all uses of AC electricity in their homes, which emit electromagnetic radiation. Your constituents are being irradiated all the time, evidently without their knowledge. It is about time they were told.PS. Best of luck with your efforts to improve people’s education in conflict zones around the world.

Echoing a2, I agree with you on the ascetic argument and strongly disagree with you when it comes to public safety. A phone mast 200m from a nursery school (and does a space exist in London that is more than 200m from a school?) emits an incredibly weak signal.We’ve had mobile phone technology for decades now. The scientific consensus is that it presents little or no health risk, but what risk there is lies in the phones themselves, not the masts. Indeed, because of the inverse-square law, the more masts we have, the less of a health risk the phones themselves become.By contrast, I notice that the Ally Pally mast is less than a kilometre from Campsbourne Junior School. This mast emits a vastly stronger signal than anything a phone mast can – after all it services the whole of North London – so why not campaign to have it closed down? Yet, I notice, you are campaigning to keep it OPEN. That doesn’t seem to be terribly consistent.

Skipping the phone mast issue entirely, isn’t that one of the McGanns (Joe?) in the photo? And Cliff Parisi off of EastEnders?

Is there nowhere on the internet safe from mentions of you Lynne:http://missfrost.livejournal.com/692901.html ??

Looks like you are right Will according to the local paper.

There are a number of issues here, which should be addressed.1. Some phone operators have a 10m exclusion zone around a mast to conform with their own health and safety code.2.Quoting the inverse square law here is pointless and would only apply if the adverse biological problems were linked with transmission power above those that are currently permitted. The UK has the highest allowable power from phone masts in the world. Further comparing the relatively short time of exposure when using a handset { albeit at higher power } with the 24/7 constant exposure to emissions from a phone mast is grossly unfair, expecially as many scientific experiments, at current mast power have shown serious adverse biological effects. The £10 million EU ecolog study to name just one.Even the ICNIRP guidelines, behind which the Government claim that there is no evidence of harm, clearly state that their exposure limits are for short term exposure only and for longer term exposure, including an increased risk of cancer, they state they have insuffeicient data to set exposure limits.People use a mobile phone from choice that same choice should be given to people to have or not have a mobile phone mast radiating into their home.I would be happly to debate the issues further if anyone is interested.

Anonymous,Happy to debate if Lynne has no objections.Addressing your points -1. On what basis do they do this?2. Biological effects can only be linked with received power, not transmitted power.Ranking of UK is not evidence of a problem.Whether the peak or accumulated dose is fairer depends on the mechanism by which any damage is done. Without proposing a mechanism, alternative metrics can be thrown up until an apparent effect is found. Because of the way statistical testing works, this makes the hypothesis untestable.A mobile phone 10cm from the centre of your head is roughly equivalent to a mast at 70cm. If you wish to compare 10 minutes a day to 24 hour exposure, that is a factor of 6×24 = 144 different, which conveniently corresponds to being exactly 12 times further away. That is, using a mobile 10 minutes a day is equivalent in accumulated dosage to living all day every day 12×0.70 = 8.4 metres from the mast. With no intervening walls or windows.Can we see a reference to the ecolog report, please, so we can see the original conclusions giving the quantified extra risk, and judge the methodology? (And in English, please.) Money spent on a project is no guarantee of quality.Scientific papers connecting disease X with factor Y are a mainstay of graduate student research – they have to be treated with caution. Publication bias (the tendency not to publish if your experiment doesn’t find anything) and other statistical problems are rife.That a correlation can be detected does not make it a significant risk in the colloquial sense of the word. You first have to quantify the risk and your uncertainty about it, and then compare it to the level of background natural risks that we all accept and ignore.Absence of data is not evidence of a problem. There is insufficient data to set safe limits on exposure to lettuce too – should we therefore ban unasked-for side-salads, just in case?(Lettuce naturally contains high levels of Caffeic acid, a known carcinogen, in case you thought my example spurious. See papers and discussion by Ames and Gold.)I am generally in favour of choice, but as I said, people should understand that they are irradiated all the time by EM fields stronger than those from mobile phone masts, and exposed to many much larger risks and unknowns. Your choices conflict with our choices, and your choices would, if pursued consistently, imply all of us cutting ourselves off from the 21st century. I believe we all ought to have a sound understanding before we make such a decision.

a2 on 25th Mar 2007 at 9:40 pm said:

This is a fascinating story.I’m not going to query the business about ruining lovely views of London, although that sounds a little odd to me, but I am quite amazed at the implied campaign here to ban mobile phones.Of course you understand that the mast operates in exactly the same way and at the same frequencies as the phones do. Because a mast may be talking to many phones, the effective power is about 50 times that of a phone, but because of the inverse square law, the two are equivalent when you are about 7 times as far from the mast as the phone. (Seven squared is about 50. You can check these figures with the ‘big boys’.) So being within 20 metres of one is like being within 3 metres of an operating phone, (like sitting near to someone using one on the bus or train) – and to actually put one of these devil-devices right against your head – deadly!Worse, the further from the base-station the phone is, the more power it transmits – all the way up to 2 Watts. So if you don’t have any base-stations nearby, those phones your kids are using have to ‘shout’ to reach with all the lethal power of a two Watt light bulb. Right next to their heads!I suggest your best argument to the mobile phone company is as follows. Because the phones are far deadlier than the masts, it makes no sense to oppose the mast unless you oppose phones even more, and therefore they’re banned from the area. And since none of the residents ever use mobiles, there is no point in putting a mobile phone mast there, as it would never actually transmit.I realise an MP must represent the views of their constituents, however well founded or otherwise they may be, but in this case I feel it is your duty to warn them of the similar dangers of mobile phones, RF TV senders, wifi networks, TV and local radio transmissions, police and ambulance radios, microwave ovens, and indeed all uses of AC electricity in their homes, which emit electromagnetic radiation. Your constituents are being irradiated all the time, evidently without their knowledge. It is about time they were told.PS. Best of luck with your efforts to improve people’s education in conflict zones around the world.
James on 26th Mar 2007 at 11:21 am said:

Echoing a2, I agree with you on the ascetic argument and strongly disagree with you when it comes to public safety. A phone mast 200m from a nursery school (and does a space exist in London that is more than 200m from a school?) emits an incredibly weak signal.We’ve had mobile phone technology for decades now. The scientific consensus is that it presents little or no health risk, but what risk there is lies in the phones themselves, not the masts. Indeed, because of the inverse-square law, the more masts we have, the less of a health risk the phones themselves become.By contrast, I notice that the Ally Pally mast is less than a kilometre from Campsbourne Junior School. This mast emits a vastly stronger signal than anything a phone mast can – after all it services the whole of North London – so why not campaign to have it closed down? Yet, I notice, you are campaigning to keep it OPEN. That doesn’t seem to be terribly consistent.
Will on 26th Mar 2007 at 2:02 pm said:

Skipping the phone mast issue entirely, isn’t that one of the McGanns (Joe?) in the photo? And Cliff Parisi off of EastEnders?
Anonymous on 26th Mar 2007 at 9:24 pm said:

Is there nowhere on the internet safe from mentions of you Lynne:http://missfrost.livejournal.com/692901.html ??
Mark P on 28th Mar 2007 at 11:02 pm said:

Looks like you are right Will according to the local paper.
Anonymous on 29th Mar 2007 at 12:11 am said:

There are a number of issues here, which should be addressed.1. Some phone operators have a 10m exclusion zone around a mast to conform with their own health and safety code.2.Quoting the inverse square law here is pointless and would only apply if the adverse biological problems were linked with transmission power above those that are currently permitted. The UK has the highest allowable power from phone masts in the world. Further comparing the relatively short time of exposure when using a handset { albeit at higher power } with the 24/7 constant exposure to emissions from a phone mast is grossly unfair, expecially as many scientific experiments, at current mast power have shown serious adverse biological effects. The £10 million EU ecolog study to name just one.Even the ICNIRP guidelines, behind which the Government claim that there is no evidence of harm, clearly state that their exposure limits are for short term exposure only and for longer term exposure, including an increased risk of cancer, they state they have insuffeicient data to set exposure limits.People use a mobile phone from choice that same choice should be given to people to have or not have a mobile phone mast radiating into their home.I would be happly to debate the issues further if anyone is interested.
A2 on 30th Mar 2007 at 12:14 am said:

Anonymous,Happy to debate if Lynne has no objections.Addressing your points -1. On what basis do they do this?2. Biological effects can only be linked with received power, not transmitted power.Ranking of UK is not evidence of a problem.Whether the peak or accumulated dose is fairer depends on the mechanism by which any damage is done. Without proposing a mechanism, alternative metrics can be thrown up until an apparent effect is found. Because of the way statistical testing works, this makes the hypothesis untestable.A mobile phone 10cm from the centre of your head is roughly equivalent to a mast at 70cm. If you wish to compare 10 minutes a day to 24 hour exposure, that is a factor of 6×24 = 144 different, which conveniently corresponds to being exactly 12 times further away. That is, using a mobile 10 minutes a day is equivalent in accumulated dosage to living all day every day 12×0.70 = 8.4 metres from the mast. With no intervening walls or windows.Can we see a reference to the ecolog report, please, so we can see the original conclusions giving the quantified extra risk, and judge the methodology? (And in English, please.) Money spent on a project is no guarantee of quality.Scientific papers connecting disease X with factor Y are a mainstay of graduate student research – they have to be treated with caution. Publication bias (the tendency not to publish if your experiment doesn’t find anything) and other statistical problems are rife.That a correlation can be detected does not make it a significant risk in the colloquial sense of the word. You first have to quantify the risk and your uncertainty about it, and then compare it to the level of background natural risks that we all accept and ignore.Absence of data is not evidence of a problem. There is insufficient data to set safe limits on exposure to lettuce too – should we therefore ban unasked-for side-salads, just in case?(Lettuce naturally contains high levels of Caffeic acid, a known carcinogen, in case you thought my example spurious. See papers and discussion by Ames and Gold.)I am generally in favour of choice, but as I said, people should understand that they are irradiated all the time by EM fields stronger than those from mobile phone masts, and exposed to many much larger risks and unknowns. Your choices conflict with our choices, and your choices would, if pursued consistently, imply all of us cutting ourselves off from the 21st century. I believe we all ought to have a sound understanding before we make such a decision.

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