PHONE MAST FEARS FOR BRUM

23-04-2007

Birmingham Council’s deputy leader Paul Tilsley is seeking re-assurance from senior officers about the safety of mobile phone masts today, after the Sunday Times revealed details of a cancer cluster in Coleshill.

The paper reported that 30 neighbours in the Warwickshire village had either contracted cancer or died from it - and that while there was no obvious single cause most locals blame a large mobile phone mast.

Stirrer editor Adrian Goldberg revealed in a Birmingham Mail article in December that Brum generates more income from masts than any other local authority - and that in some cases, they are placed near schools (to see the article click here)

Tilsley said: “I will be talking to senior officers about this because I want clarity in my own mind with regard to phone mast situation, given the Coleshill experience.”

Within Birmingham, there have been a number of high-profile anti-mast campaigners, with Eileen O’Connor from Wishaw near Sutton Coldfield being the most prominent.

Tilsley stressed, though, that the sighting of masts in or near schools - thought by opponents to be more dangerous because children have thinner skulls than adults - was not something the council could prevent.

“Schools have local management arrangements and we’ve got no control over that.”

However Tilseley down-played reports in the Independent On Sunday about the dangers of wireless internet connections - or wi-fi.

He’s keen to see Birmingham become the first city centre entirely covered with wi-fi capability, and although the chair of the Health Protection Agency Sir William Stewart has called for its effects to be monitored, he’s mainly concerned about its effects on children.

“My understanding is that it’s pretty low-powered stuff” said Tilsley, “and there aren’t any schools in the city centre, so I don’t think there’s a problem as far as the wi-fi network is concerned”.