Council lawyers in Bristol are ‘pushing back’ against two of Britain’s biggest mobile phone firms, who are invoking emergency powers to erect a 24 metre high phone mast in the middle of a South Bristol park.
Hutchison 3G and EE say they need to erect the mast in the middle of Redcatch Park because their previous phone mast, on the roof of a pub nearby, has been removed. But after an unprecedented backlash from local residents, which climaxed in a passionate speech to council chiefs from a local vicar this week, the Mayor of Bristol has confirmed the council is looking at fighting the proposal.
Mobile phone network firm MNBL has applied to the council to erect the mast - as well as surrounding it with a compound of supporting buildings - in the middle of Redcatch Park, a publicly-owned formal park in Knowle.
Read more: Fight to stop 24m phone mast being built in Redcatch Park
The company, acting for phone networks EE and Three, say they need the phone mast because one was taken down from a former pub nearby, which has since been redeveloped. As residents of Ashton discovered in early 2020, phone network companies have wide-ranging powers to erect temporary mobile phone masts, and there is little the local authorities can do about it.
When the Redcatch Park plan was first announced, Bristol City Council said that even though the council owns the park, the mobile phone companies can use these emergency powers to bypass the need for planning permission, and the council could be taken to court if they refuse to allow the mast to go ahead.
MNBL said the temporary mast is required in the area to boost mobile phone signals, after a mast was taken down from the site of a nearby former pub in Axminster Road. A spokesperson for MNBL, the company behind the application, said: "The temporary site at Redcatch Park is to provide coverage following the loss of our permanent site which was housed at The Friendship Inn public house in Knowle.
"The building and land was acquired by developers and meant that we needed to vacate. This has resulted in a loss of coverage for both EE and Three customers.
"We do endeavour to find permanent solutions as quickly as possible but where circumstances prevail we work with the Local Planning Authorities to deploy temporary equipment so that the network services can be maintained, and those residents and businesses that rely upon EE and Three remain connected.
"We will continue to work closely with Bristol City Council and the planning officers, as well as the local community during this process," they added.
The mast plans have triggered a huge backlash from local residents and users of Redcatch Park. Scores of public statements and questions were submitted to the full Bristol City Council meeting on Tuesday evening, as well as a petition containing 3,637 signatures.
The campaign co-founder Sian Ellis-Thomas said that figure had now risen to 4,492, and there have been 279 formal letters of objection to council chiefs too. One of those speaking out at the meeting on Tuesday evening was Rev Matthew Norris, from the Bristol Nazarene Church in Knowle.
He told the mayor the mast was ‘everything the park was conceived against’. “I have been walking through Redcatch Park everyday for over 12 years to get to my church. It is my 400m commute,” he told the mayor during Tuesday's meeting.
“Throughout these years I have drawn strength and energy from its beauty. It is a place of wellbeing. It is a place of good memories. A place of friendships found and maintained. It’s a place where I have seen my family grow, play and thrive.
“Amongst the strains of modern life Redcatch Park continues to serve its primary purpose to me and to 1000’s of others. The mast is everything the park was conceived against.
"The mast is a brutal corporate lazy industrial blight on this place of wellbeing. The mast spoils. The mast corrupts. The mast infringes on the core purpose of this precious space. We must protect this space from this cancerous ill conceived abuse of power, given in good faith by central government, to expand the wonderful telecommunications infrastructure of our country.
“We are the guardians of this legacy of wellbeing and health for local people. We are called to protect these precious spaces. This is our legacy to future users of Redcatch Park,” he added.
Responding to the dozens of public statements, and a claim by Sian Ellis-Thomas that the council could challenge the use of these emergency powers, the mayor of Bristol indicated that the council would try to fight the plan.
“I share your frustration over this,” Marvin Rees told the residents of Knowle at the council meeting. “We don’t think the use of emergency powers is appropriate and our lawyers are pushing back on this.
"I have to be careful what I say here because I can’t get caught into a situation where I prejudice a decision and then leave us more vulnerable than we should be,” he added.
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