PLANNERS REFUSE 52-FOOT HIGH TELECOM MAST NEAR SALFORD QUAYS

Planners have refused an application for a 52-foot high telecom pole near Salford Quays, amid the ongoing controversy about the masts across the country.

CK Hutchinson Networks (UK) submitted an application to the city council’s planning portal for the 5G mast on Broadway. It also included additional equipment cabinets. 

However, the application to ‘determine whether prior approval is required for the proposal’ was turned down by a planning officer under delegated powers without being debated by councillors.

Oasis Academy, Media City UK and Media City Nature Kindergarten were all identified as being within 300 metres of the proposed application site.

Under planning law, the telecommunications mast must be below 49.2 ft or 15 metres.

Members of Salford’s planning and transportation regulatory panel have recently expressed outrage at an ‘epidemic’ of ‘unsightly’ telegraph poles across the city and have demanded action from the Local Government Association, which represents councils across England and Wales.

Some companies with a central government procurement agreement are allowed to erect the masts without planning permission, whereas others are not. 

Coun John Warmisham has called the ‘ad hoc’ way posts can be erected ‘scandalous’.

Coun Philip Cusack, who since the local elections in May has become the panel’s new chairman, recently told the Local Democracy Reporting Service:

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“There are poles springing up all over the place. One was put right in front of the bedroom window of one woman’s house and there is nothing we can do about it.”