Proposals for a new 16m tall 5G mast on Coleridge Road in Greenmount are facing ongoing criticism from local residents, councillors and Bury North MP, James Daly.
The 16m monopole, standing double the height of the house immediately next to the proposed site, has been described as “overbearing” and “completely out of place” by residents. They also argue the proposed site is part of a limited supply of green spaces on the estate and siting the installation here would be a loss of amenity.
Local Councillors and MP James Daly agree and have sent letters to residents affected in the area after the Council Officers originally only consulted five properties. The application now has more than 140 objections – far higher than the vast majority of other planning applications. Fears that this application may be approved by a Council Officer through what is known as a “delegated decision”, rather than at the full Planning Committee, have prompted local MP James Daly to write to Bury Council’s Chief Executive and, Head of Planning to request the application is heard.
Speaking about this James Daly MP commented:
“I am pushing for this decision to be put before the planning committee to ensure the people of Greenmount are not ignored. There have been some unhelpful suggestions the council are unable to reject this proposal due to national planning policy. This is simply not true. Councils are not able to outright ban mast building in their area, but they are absolutely able to reject applications based on normal planning concerns.”
Mr Daly has written to residents and included a link to his website where he has placed the letters and his objection to the application for residents to see. This link can be found here: https://www.jamesdaly.org.uk/greenmountmast
A decision will be made on the proposal on 17th October and, despite earlier indications, local councillors have agreed with planning officers that comments will be considered all the way up to the decision date. However, they have asked comments to be made as soon as possible so there is sufficient time to consider them.
Mr Daly added:
“It seems extraordinary that the only consultation the applicant conducted was with Bury Council and a single e-mail sent to Greenmount Primary School during the summer holidays. There is no evidence to say this e-mail was sent to the correct email address or that it was indeed received. It is inconceivable that this consultation should have completely discounted all local residents and other interested local organisations.”
“The required consultations were not sufficient or in line with the requirements of the National Planning Policy Framework and if allowed to proceed by way of delegated decision would mean the local Greenmount community has been completely excluded from the process and any views or questions they may have had or do have been treated with utter contempt by the applicant.”
Further concerns have been raised over weakness in the current Bury Council Policy (EN1/10) which deals with communications equipment in planning. Public consultation is explicitly excluded from the document and does not provide an analysis of the needs of consumers in Bury which is a key part of the NPPF.
The proposal can be seen and any comments submitted by going to:
https://planning.bury.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?…
