Residents of Cork town ‘distraught’ over erection of telecomms masts near their homes
CorkmanA Carrigaline councillor has said licence applications for telecommunication masts should be published online by Cork County Council (CCC) in the interests of transparency, adding that the masts are causing “great concern” when installed near homes in the town.
Companies wishing to install overground electronic communications infrastructure such as masts on publicly-owned land need to apply for a Section 254 licence from the relevant local authority. At a CCC meeting this week, Cllr Patrick Donovan put forward a motion calling for those licence applications to be made public.
“In Carrigaline we have seen a number of telecommunication masts installed under the 254 license applications. Residents who have them installed near their home are just looking for greater transparency in respect of what company has applied and been granted permission to install this mast. I do think we need a greater transparency around these telecommunications masts,” he said.
“I understand that there's an element of legislative change that needs to be brought about for possibly a full planning application in terms of what can be added on to the mast once it's installed but this is causing a great concern for people. Personally, I believe that they should only be installed in industrial areas. In Carrigaline we have a situation where we have a number in housing estates.”
The motion was seconded by Cllr Jack White, who said that originally the Section 254 licence system was “intended to be for things like phone boxes and street signage and so on and still can be but it's essentially being a little bit abused now by these companies to put up masts that are inappropriate in certain areas.” He said companies are using the system “because no documentation has to be made publicly available.”
Cllr White said the masts are necessary infrastructure “but they need to be thought about in industrial settings, shopping centre car parks, the median of roadways, roundabouts and so on. They can't be going up as we've seen in Carrigaline adjoining people's homes. It's causing great distress and upset. Cllr Donovan and I and others have sat in in the kitchens of people in Carrigaline who are really distraught about this.”
Cllr Una McCarthy also agreed with the motion and said that residents and local businesses in Carrigaline “often have very legitimate concerns regarding the location, the height and the visual impact of telecommunication masts. The erection of such masts has caused significant concern among residents where they have been erected near their homes without notice and it's very, very concerning for them.”
The Fine Gael councillor said that publishing the details of Section 254 licence applications for telecommunication masts would improve transparency and community engagement “and would also help address concerns and minimise complaints that people have afterwards.”
Responding to the motion, CCC Divisional Manager Michael Lynch said the current legislation doesn’t require a publicly accessible register of Section 254 licence applications received by a local authority but added that the council will “look at what's been done elsewhere. We’ll look at if it can be done, how it might be done and we'll come back to the members directly.”
Mr Lynch said that Section 254 licences are a “legitimate tool available for operators to use to deliver masts or to deliver telecommunication infrastructure” and added that there are exemptions in place to attach antennae to masts that have received approval. “That's because it's national policy to promote co-location rather than more masts so that you maximise the use of masts.”
He also pointed out that while a third party can appeal a decision made on a Section 254 licence, “they can't make submissions on an application” because the process doesn’t have a public consultation element built into it.