Tuesday 1 January 2008

Phone mast - time ticking by

If you wish your views to be taken into account when the phone mast application is determined, you only have another 9 days in which to make comments. Today Claire Young was out delivering letters to more households in the area explaining how they can make comments.

It might be useful to explain how we got to this point. The Government encourages mobile phone operators to carry out informal consultations before making a formal planning application. There are no laws governing how this is done and the Council's planning department is not involved at this stage. For this proposal, Claire asked Vodafone's agents to contact local residents and they agreed to delay making a formal application while they did this.

Unfortunately Vodafone's agents used the wrong addresses for around half those they tried to contact and then pressed ahead with the formal planning application.

Once a planning application has been registered, it has to go through the formal planning process, which is covered by legislation. There are time limits, for example, so with the application having been submitted just before Christmas the deadline for comments is 10th January. There are also rules about who the Council's planners should inform about the application. As far as Claire is aware, everyone who should have been notified by the Council has been and, unlike Vodafone's agents, they have used the correct addresses. However if anyone is concerned, please do contact Claire.

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