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Residents victory over mobile phone masts

Thursday, 15 May 2008

Residents in Crumlin are celebrating a rare and unprecedented victory against two telecommunications companies who were refused planning retention permission recently by An Bord Pleanála for mobile phone masts and antennae in a sports ground owned by drinks giant Diageo.
Last year, mobile phone companies O2, Meteor and Vodafone attached the masts to flood lighting fixtures at the Iveagh Sports Ground in Crumlin after they were leased to them by the Guinness Athletic Union (GAU) through a letting agency, ISM Ireland.
All three mobile phone companies attached the telecommunications equipment to the floodlight fixtures without planning permission and subsequently applied for planning retention, which was initially refused by Dublin City Council.
Although the local authority had served enforcement notices on the three companies to take down the masts both Meteor and Vodafone appealed the decision to the planning appeals board. However, O2 decided not to appeal the local authority’s ruling and removed their equipment.
The board recently decided to uphold the city council’s decision to refuse planning retention permission for the masts in what Southside People understands is one of the first times they have done so in the Dublin area.
The masts and substations were located within 35 metres of 109 houses in Iveagh Gardens and within 250 metres of the nearby Ardscoil Éanna. Our Lady’s Hospital for Sick Children, Crumlin is also located some 500 metres away from the grounds.
Informed

In March of this year, the president of the GAU, Ciara Gilleece, wrote to Meteor and Vodafone instructing them to remove the masts and served notice on both companies to take down the equipment until such time as An Bord Pleanála had decided the case.
The GAU also informed the mobile phone companies that they would have to take down the masts after a 12 month period even if the planning appeals board granted permission for the equipment. The companies followed the GAU order and removed the masts last month even though their case with the board was ongoing.
Residents of the adjoining Iveagh Gardens and a number of local councillors held several protest marches last summer demanding that the GAU take down the masts, as they feared the telecommunications equipment could potentially damage locals’ health.
In their submissions on the companies’ appeals to An Bord Pleanála, residents said the mobile operators should not have located the equipment without planning permission in a residential area and should instead have erected it in a nearby industrial estate.
Ruling on both cases, An Bord Pleanála upheld the city council’s decision and said the proposed developments were contrary to the Dublin City Development plan and guidelines on telecommunications structures issued by the Department of the Environment to local authorities in 1996.
“The application does not provide adequate evidence that reasonable efforts have been made to share installations with other operators in the area, or that comprehensive investigations have taken place with regard to alternative sites, in particular, in established commercial and industrial areas in the vicinity,” the board’s report states.
“The development as proposed to be retained would contribute to proliferation and clutter of installations in this restricted area zoned for open space and recreation and would seriously injure the amenities of residential properties in the vicinity.”
Delight
Reacting to the news, a jubilant campaigner against the masts and resident of Iveagh Gardens, Frank Barnett, said locals felt a huge sense of relief at the decision by the appeals board.
"It has been a 13-month battle,” he said. “We had a lot of support not just from Iveagh Gardens but also from neighbouring residential estates as well. There is absolute delight and relief that these structures are gone.
“These masts were very intrusive on the skyline and there was no reason for placing them here given that there is an industrial estate next door,” he added. “It was our contention that the phone companies should have placed the masts in the industrial estates and away from residential houses.”

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