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Mr John Prescott
Deputy Prime Minister
House of Commons
Westminster
London
SW1A 1AA
26 June 2004
Dear Mr Prescott
Following a recent article in the 24th June edition of the Daily Mail, I am moved to write to you personally. I have written various letters to the Home Office as have many others, but it is clear they are not going to take our concerns into account.
I am one of an enormous number of people in the UK concerned about the potential health risks associated with the TETRA system for the emergency services and the new generation of 3G masts.
Not that anyone would want the Police to have anything but the best system available in order to do their increasingly difficult job. However, having read and heard so much in the past year about the potential implications for our health, I am extremely concerned that the TETRA system is still being rolled out and so many 3G masts are planned for this small island of ours.
This in spite of our sending in hundreds of letters to our local planning committees whenever a planning application comes up. When the application has gone to appeal, which is on most occasions, hundreds more are sent to the Planning Inspectorate, in our case in Bristol. Still they are allowed to be erected.
I was therefore delighted to read in the above mentioned article that one Planning Inspector stated that the mobile phone companies did not offer sufficient reassurance that the mast would cause ‘no material harm to the children’s health’. This has been true for all such applications that I have been involved in. What makes this one any different? I have heard representatives of Airwave mmO2 at planning committee meetings state that the health concerns are not their problem, that they are insured and that it will be up to the Courts in the future to decide who is responsible for any ensuing health problems.
In spite of the public concern expressed by attendance at the planning committee meetings and those hundreds of letters and petitions sent in, we all feel there is no democracy involved, our concerns and questions are not being addressed and our health is being put at risk at the highest level. Also fuelling the feeling that there is just too much money involved both for the Government and Mobile Phone companies for anyone to be willing to listen, no matter how much we try to be heard via the so-called democratic process involved in planning applications and appeals.
There is also the question raised in the European Courts recently about the legitimacy of the procurement procedure used by the Government to grant this contract to Airwave mmO2 in the first place.
One of the major problems we had in putting our case to the various planning authorities was the edict that I understand came from yourself, that health should not be an acceptable reason to refuse these applications. Why you made that decision I cannot fathom as surely health should be of the highest priority. If what I have read and heard about the health risks turn out to be proved right, then the pressure on the Health Service in the future will be immense and the long term health of the citizens of this country, particularly our developing young people, will be irreversible. Never mind obesity, what about cancer, epilepsy, and other illnesses I have heard mentioned in the TETRA and 3G debate?
The article in the Daily Mail I refer to above says that you are considering fighting a decision by Deputy High Court Judge Sir Richard Tucker that one particular mast should be erected in North Yorkshire in spite of refusal by a Planning Committee and the Planning Inspectorate involved. Again why this one? Why are you going against this mast when there are thousands around the country causing just the same amount of concern and worry and which will bring the same amount of risk to people living near these masts, whatever age? Particularly as health was the main reason for turning down this application by the Planning Inspectorate.
I have listened recently to some of the political debate that has been going on about why the Labour Party did so badly in the recent local and European elections. While the Iraq war and concerns about the European Constitution are cited as two of the main concerns with the Government, I can assure you that there are those of us who are equally concerned about this roll out of mobile phone technology and the Government’s attitude to it and lack of willingness to listen to our concerns. This issue will certainly affect my vote at the next General Election as an ex-cancer sufferer!
How can the roll out of the TETRA system go on when the ICNIRP guidelines are being questioned? (In any case they are only guidelines.) When the NRPB will not give the reassurance that these masts are safe? When Professor Challis, when questioned on television by a lady with cancer living in a small hamlet with a mobile phone mast in its midst, which is in itself a cancer cluster, would not say they are safe although the Home Office constantly quote him as their ‘expert’? Why will the NRPB not go out to these cancer clusters and investigate what is causing them?
I would be interested to hear why this particular mast has commanded your attention when around the country so much stress is being caused by having to go through the planning process for each individual mast. Also when Airwave behave in a bullying arrogant and aggressive way (and I have personal experience of this); and when we feel no one cares about our concerns, just about fulfilling a contract and making money.
If our Government is not going to listen, perhaps something will come of the efforts of the Green Party via the European Parliament. Surely someone has to see sense before this technology becomes another possible thalidomide or asbestosis.
Yours sincerely,
Vivienne Coleshill (Mrs)
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