Improving the impact of Phone Masts

[mancRickster]

Hi there,
To give you some background...some months ago Vodafone put in a planning application to build a huge unslightly 15m mast outside our house on the edge of Mitcham's stunning, and award winning Common.
The community objected in their masses, the local press got involved, and we won the objection and the application was denied.

Unfortunately (this is the most inoffensive language i can use) Merton council failed to submit this application rejection on time, Vodofone took them to the high court, Vodafone won, and now the community looks out on an ugly grey 15m mast and 4 large grey cabinets every morning when we open our curtains, or take a peaceful walk on Mitcham Common. Seriously - it's beeen soul destroying the way Vodafone has acted and how little regard they have for our green spaces.

Despite uproar from the community, and coverage from the local press, it seems there is nothing we can do.

Please Vodafone, is there anything you could do to win back some of the credability you've lost in our community? Even offering to paint the mast brown (to merge in with the nearby trees) and the cabinets green (to blend against the grass and shrubs), would help to minimise the brutal impact this eyesore has on the surrounding lush, green, wild and stunning landscape.

Can you help, or can you put me in touch with someone who could at least attempt to minmise this ugly addition to our community?

Yours sincerely,
Rick Livesey

[BandOfBrothers]

Hi

I totally sympathise with the situation. 

We see people on here crying out for signal and more masts being erected and even some offering their private land to have one built. 

On the other hand there is the NIMBY argument. 

Vodafone own and monitor all posts left on the forum. 

Hang on in there and I'm sure they'll help if they can. 

[AnnS]

Hi @mancRickster

Quite sympathise, if only the Council had not failed to submit the application rejection during the time limit. 

It might be an idea to write to Vodafone addressing your letter to Customer Relations at the Newbury address at the bottom of the page.

They should be able to pass your concern to the relevant department and get back to you.

[Nabs]

I assume it's the monopole design of mast you've got outside?

There certainly are things that can be done to make a mast more apealing to the eye. I've seen them painted brown to appear like telegraph poles, even seen some with artificial leaves to appear like tree's however these are typically done at the manufacturing stage, i'm not aware of anywhere it's been applied retrospectively. Your local council could have set a condition on the planning application to force the companies to do this.

To be honest if the mast is already there it's very unlikely that you'll get anything done to change that. It's also worth mentioning that Vodafone themselves don't actually manage their mast sites, it's a company called CTIL that do so if anyone were able to help it would be them who you'd need to contact (contact form available on their website linked above)

[PedroC1999]

I've looked at the planning application and it's a dual stack Hutchinson Jupiter. At 15m, it is actually on the shorter end of things. There's a 17m one not too far from me and I know people who go past it every day who have never noticed. 

They're a kinda mast you only see if you're looking. Unfortunately, a problem with planning applications is they cause people to look.

 Nabs-mast ownership is way more complex and goes well beyond CTIL.

[peterkin262]

NIMBYism REALLY annoys me.

How many of these objectors own a mobile?

If they don't then although I disagree with them, I respect them.

Otherwise, how on earth do they expect coverage without masts?

And if they're so bothered about health issues (UTTER RUBBISH btw!!) why aren't they protesting when a mast goes up on top of a block of flats?

Or maybe they think masts ought to be confined to the pleb areas and their areas are too good for them.

HYPOCRITES.