Gunthorpe residents who object to 'eyesore' 5G mast will take campaign to Peterborough council meeting

A group of Gunthorpe residents who object to 5G masts being built close to their homes will take their campaign to a Peterborough City Council (PCC) meeting.

The residents – who live around Coniston Road, where one of the telecommunication poles has been erected on a grass verge – say they plan to voice their concerns to councillors at the next full council meeting, on Wednesday, 1st November.

The residents say that they were unaware how close the 15m pole would be built to their properties and have accused PCC’s planning team of “serious mismanagement during the planning process” and a failure to adequately communicate with them.

PCC says that, while layout plans submitted by the applicant were not to scale, they were accurate and available to residents before the pole was built.

But residents say that “the council must move the mast to a better and less prominent site,” in a statement issued ahead of the meeting.

The same group also staged a protest against the existing pole in August this year and have also sent letters to the council signalling their objection to any further poles being built.

They will now ask councillors to support their campaign to have the Coniston Road pole moved during the public questions section of Wednesday’s council meeting.

The residents will also “ask searching questions about the mast erection process”, they said.

Mast is 'an eyesore'

The groups’ primary objection to the pole is that it is an “eyesore”.

Pauline Hinchliffe, who helped organise the August protest, said that the mast is “grotesque and an eyesore on such a lovely estate”.

“The council failed in its aim to prevent the mast causing visual harm and nuisance to the character and appearance of the surrounding area”, she added.

Another resident, Alan Wilson, said that he “cannot be in my garden without seeing it”.

Another, Richard Olive, said that “one of the biggest problems has been the difficulty in contacting planning officers”.

“We have left numerous messages and questions but have received very little information from the council,” he added.

“It has meant that objectors have struggled to get the information they have needed in the timescales allowed.”

PCC says that residents were notified when the application for the pole was submitted and that their comments were taken into consideration during the planning process.

They also say that planning officers are available by phone or email.

5G masts, or monopoles, have various uses, the most common of which is to provide signal for mobile phones.

Three, the provider which erected the Coniston Road monopole, has previously said that better connectivity is “crucial” for residents and businesses in the area.

“While we try to keep mast sites as unobtrusive as possible, they do need to be situated near to where people will be using the service and, in many cases, in precise locations to ensure the widest breadth of coverage,” the spokesperson added.