Protester erects fake phone mast

18 June 2009
A man has put up a fake phone mast in a bid to stop a real one being built next to his garage in Hamp­shire.

Sean Den­man reject­ed £4,500 from Voda­fone to erect a mast at his ser­vice sta­tion in Ever­ton Road, Hor­dle.

The phone giant turned its atten­tion to a pave­ment adja­cent to the garage but was ini­tial­ly refused per­mis­sion.

How­ev­er, the plan was agreed on appeal but Mr Den­man has blocked con­struc­tion by weld­ing a pole and a box to a car which over­hangs the pave­ment.

Voda­fone said it was still look­ing to start work at the site, by the end of March 2010, and would take advice on any obstruc­tion at the site before work was due to start.

The firm said it would need a plan­ning agree­ment if it want­ed to move its mast to avoid Mr Den­man’s con­struc­tion.

In a state­ment, Voda­fone said: “The pro­posed radio base sta­tion… is required to improve the 3G cov­er­age to our cus­tomers in the area.

This loca­tion was cho­sen after con­sid­er­a­tion of 15 alter­na­tives as it pro­vides a back­drop of street fur­ni­ture, against which the pro­posed tim­ber tele­graph pole will not be visu­al­ly intru­sive.

“We are cur­rent­ly final­is­ing our build plans and it is our inten­tion to devel­op this site this finan­cial year.”

Mr Den­man said: “I had to get land sur­vey­ors to mark down where this con­struc­tion would go.

“Not hav­ing com­plete right of way, I decid­ed I can’t put any­thing on the pave­ment so took a car, weld­ed on a box and pole which over­hangs by the cor­rect amount cov­er­ing where the mast and box would go.

“They [Voda­fone] feel they can put their con­struc­tion any­where and make up any excuse.

“I am not against it, but not in this sort of place.”

‘Anten­nae need­ed’

New For­est Dis­trict Coun­cil and the parish coun­cil had pre­vi­ous­ly refused the plan­ning appli­ca­tion.

Chris Elliott, head of plan­ning at the coun­cil, said: “The coun­cil is con­cerned that so many phone mast appeals like this are being allowed by plan­ning inspec­tors because of the gov­ern­men­t’s com­mit­ment to 3G tech­nol­o­gy.”

The plan­ning inspec­tor had agreed the pro­pos­al, with a report stat­ing: “The appel­lant [Voda­fone] has demon­strat­ed the need for the anten­nae to pro­vide 3G cov­er­age in the Hor­dle area.”

The inspec­tor added that “giv­en gov­ern­ment tele­coms plan­ning pol­i­cy… the need for this facil­i­ty is suf­fi­cient to out­weigh the lim­it­ed harm to the char­ac­ter and appear­ance of the area.”