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Bognor against TETRA: News |
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We are concerned about the health risks, the costs, and the capacity of TETRA to provide effective police communications.
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Tetra installation at Golf Links Road, Felpham : erected 12 June 2004
The old BT Cellnet mast at Felpham Golf Course has been converted to TETRA. There is a also new patch antenna about 18 inches square. This site is now radiating TETRA signals on four carriers. The patch antenna communicates directly with the Reynolds Building, which acts as the local area network’s district switching station. Note that it doesn’t look like TETRA dipoles or colinear antennae, but it is Airwave. Comparison with photographs from 2001 show that the new antennae are similar but have indeed been changed very recently. A resident whose garden backs onto the mast, had reports from neighbours of nosebleeds and headaches. When he enquired about TETRA, we told him there was no TETRA. There had been no planning application, nothing in the press, no Airwave sign on the enclosure, and the antennae have not been observed in use for TETRA in Sussex before. Only after measurement and confirmation of dates, did we learn that TETRA had been installed. So the symptoms that we could not understand started since the TETRA transmisions began. The experiences of adverse health in Felpham echo those felt elsewhere and worse. But who in this country will listen? TETRA is back in Bognor. Dominic Reynolds was so insistent that he wanted TETRA removed, and yet O2 continue to use his premises as an active part of the network. A local expert observer notes (2 July 2004): The frequencies of some other bases around Bognor have been changed, and power levels altered to accommodate the new site. The Golf Links site is numbered SUS022C, Reynolds is SUS022A so where is SUS022B? My own measurements show two of the Golf Links carriers (on frequencies originally used at Reynolds) giving strong signals in the town centre. The other two carriers are directed northwards away from Bognor suggesting that they were probably going to reactivate this site anyway and the Reynolds debacle only meant that they had to increase its capacity to provide coverage to the south and east. Signal levels from the Golf Links site are poor at Avisford Park and elsewhere around Aldwick and Pagham but there are fair to strong signals from three neighbouring sites. Some new antennas will be installed at one of the cellular sites at Avisford Park shortly – the cables and mounting hardware are already in place. No microwave link would be required to Reynolds as a landline network connection is possible here. So it is quite possible that SUSO22B will turn up there. It turns out that with the apparently active assistance of Government legislation and Council compliance, Airwave have found a way to circumvent the planning processes which are supposed to protect us. Here is Arun District Council’s announcement: Arun District Council: List of Notices of Intention to develop under the Electronic Communications Code (Conditions and Restrictions) Regulations 2003. For information purposes the following telecommunication notices of intention have been received. These notices can be inspected at the Arun Civic Centre Littlehampton during normal office hours. Representations cannot be considered.
For information, please find attached a copy of the regulation referred to. It appears that despite not being able to meet the requirements of Para 5 - (1) (a), he has installed a previous electronics communications apparatus) this requirement is cancelled by By Para 5 - (4) (a) because it is being installed inside a building. Your attention is drawn to para 16 et seq where there is a duty imposed on the code operator to ‘ensure sufficient funds are available to meet the specified liabilities’ and a 'certificate shall state - (a) the amount of funds which have been provided for... (6) accompanied by copies of any insurance policy bond, guarantee or other instrument which will provide the funds. General conditions 3. - (1) A code operator shall consult - (b) planning authorities But the planning authorities have made no attempt to look after the interests of the local community by alerting them, nor to imposing conditions. The planning authority ‘may, within one calendar month of the receipt of that notice, give the code operator written notice of conditions with which the planning authority wishes him to comply ... but he is not obliged to comply with those conditions to the extent that they are unreasonable in all the circumstances.’ Para 5. -(3) June 2004. No developments yet in Avisford Park, other than expansion of the Orange facility. But one in nearby Church Norton is still contested on planning details. For local news:
28 April 2004. O2 contractors in action. Measuring signal strengths in Avisford Park, Rose Green, Bognor: testing for an alternative site? Contractors were heard to say this site would ‘be perfect’.
Bognor is asked to watch out, photo and report to us any activity by O2 suggesting interest in alternative sites or masts to replace the Reynolds mast (should they ever tell the truth and remove it). Looks like mast-sharing is in view with T-Mobile or Orange. O2 Airwave engineer attends Reynolds Depository 14 May and says ‘There! I’ve turned it off!’ How could he? O2 turned it off on April 12 ... and on May 5 ... The mast is still operating. Susan Moore, O2, assured Councillor Paul Wells by telephone on the morning of 5 May that the Reynolds Mast had definitely been switched off. Sixty people at the meeting on the evening of 5 May could see on radio monitoring equipment that the mast was operating fully and pulsing. O2 has promised to remove the antennae on Tuesday 5 May. It is still switched on and operating (1 May). TETRA Awareness Day, Bognor town centre from 9.30 1st May
O2 wrote to Dominic Reynolds that the TETRA mast was switched off. Susan Moore of O2 confirmed this. BUT, as of today, 27 April 2004, it is most certainly on. Compare this with Josh Berle, O2 Airwave saying that Woodside Road, Worthing, was not switched off, when is most certainly is off! Reynolds update 15 April 2004: the mast on the Reynolds building has in part been switched off it seems! People are feeling much better, with symptoms relieved. But for how long? It won’t stop the protest. POLICE COMMUNITY CONSULTATION Meeting, Felpham, Nr Bognor: Monday 29 March, 6.15 pm in the Village Hall (St Mary’s Centre). Thank you to all of you who turned out at this packed meeting, for putting Airwave on the meeting’s agenda (since the police did not), and for demanding action against this threat. A great deal of feeling was presented to the police. BOGNOR AGAINST TETRA: PUBLIC MEETING Meeting: Tuesday 23 March, 7.30 pm, at the Alexandria Theatre, Regis Centre, Bognor. Chaired by Hugh Coster of CiViC. Thank you to the 160 or so of you in Bognor who turned out to hear both sides of the argument. Straw poll votes: 99% of you feel that TETRA is not safe and that the mast on Reynolds should be removed. 0% felt that TETRA was definitely safe (with the exception of our guests from O2 and Sussex Police). Perhaps 75% of you declared health symptoms from TETRA.
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 This is now a TETRA mast converted from a BT Cellnet site. It looks very similar, but new antennae have been fitted. The small silver square is a TETRA microwave link with a similar one on the Reynolds Building in the town. (Whose building is it? Reynolds’ or mmO2’s?!). |
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O2 people have been telling Felpham residents that there has been TETRA at Avisford Park for some time with no effect on people. This is NOT true. There is no TETRA in Avisford, nor to the east in Bognor, as others have been told. O2 employees are deliberately attempting to dismiss what is actually happening in Felpham, and stop people attributing the experiences to the obvious cause.
