24th June 2007
The Church of England’s Diocese of Lichfield has today spoken out to calm fears caused by two separate demonstrations against mobile phone base stations in the Black Country.
In the latest protest around 60 protestors blockaded a church in Wednesbury this morning to voice their objection to a possible mast planned for the tower of St Francis of Assisi Church in Friars Park.
And protests have also been made against a mast which will be installed shortly at the King’s School in Wolverhampton.
The Director of Communications for the Diocese of Lichfield, Gavin Drake, said many of the protests are based on misinformation; not only about the effects on people’s health, but also about the status of both sites.
He said: “There has been a mobile phone base station at The King’s School in Wolverhampton for the past seven years. All that is happening now is that the phone company wish to replace this with a newer mast.
“The local authority planning department rejected the application but it has been allowed by the planning inspectorate following an appeal. The replacement mast will now be installed in the next few months.
“Protestors have claimed that the mast has been forced through by the Diocese of Lichfield because we receive £70,000 a year from it. Nothing could be further from the truth.
“For a start mobile phone companies generally pay a rental or lease fee of between £3,000 and £9,000 a year depending on the site and other conditions. I am not prepared to divulge how much is received at any particular site because that is commercially sensitive information which is confidential between the site and the mobile phone operator.
“I am happy to confirm that the Diocese of Lichfield does not receive a penny from the mast at the school - all the money received is used by the school for the benefit of their students.”
Gavin Drake claimed that misinformation was behind today’s protests at Wednesbury. “As it stands today, there is no application for a mast at St Francis of Assisi Church in Wednesbury. Discussions have taken place between QS4, which until the 30th May this year was the Church of England’s approved installer, and the local Parochial Church Council.
“The PCC have agreed in principle that they are happy for a mast to be installed in the tower of their church. As part of the agreement between the Archbishops’ Council and QS4 an enhanced programme of consultation takes place before any formal application is made.
“Many of the protestors at the church today - and many of the comments we have received via email - have asked why local people have only just been told about the proposed mast. The answer is simple - we are at the start of a consultation process; not the end of it.
“No formal decision has been made, because no formal application has been received. QS4 and the PCC will take the views of local residents on board when they consider making a formal application.
“At that stage a formal public notice will be displayed outside the church and local residents will be invited to submit their views in writing. These will then be considered by the Diocesan Advisory Committee (DAC) - the statutory body which regulates planning issues within Church of England buildings.
“The DAC will present the application and any objections to the Chancellor of the Diocese, His Honour Judge Marten Coates, who will decide whether to allow or reject the application. This process, known as Faculty Jurisdiction, is normally dealt with on paper; but opponents to an application do have the right to request that the matter be dealt with at a formal hearing of the Consistory Court.”
He added: “The process of Faculty Jurisdiction within consecrated Church of England buildings is laid down in law and is designed to ensure that opponents and supporters of proposed developments can make their views known.
“We are at an early stage in the process in Wednesbury and it is completely wrong for protestors to say the Church won’t listen or that decisions have already been taken.
“Everybody has the right to protest, but nobody has the right to behave the way some of the protestors outside St Francis’ Church behaved this morning. The protestors claim they are concerned for children; yet they were happy to act like a baying mob booing and jeering young children and elderly parishioners as they left church this morning. Such behaviour is intolerable and I hope these protestors will reflect on their actions.”
In 2003, Chancellor Grenfell in the Ripon and Leeds Consistory Court considered the health risks following similar applications at Saint Margaret’s Church, Hawes; and Holy Trinity Church, Knaresborough. His decision is not binding on Lichfield Consistory Court, but is significant because he heard expert evidence about the risk from such antennae to human health. In considering the objections to the petitions the Chancellor concluded that any stress or anxiety felt about a risk to health was attributable to the perception of risk rather than the level of radio waves caused by the antennae.
In January 2005, the then-Chancellor of Lichfield, His Honour Judge John Shand, rejected an application for a mast at Emmanuel Church in Bentley, Walsall. This decision was appealed and the Court of Arches, in November that year, over-turned the Chancellor’s decision. The Court of Arches ruled that “the Chancellor misdirected himself in law which led to him attaching disproportionate weight to the ‘subjective perception of hazard’ resulting in an erroneous evaluation of the evidence.
“Secondly that the Chancellor took into account the scientifically unproven concerns of local residents as to health hazards, which should have been treated as irrelevant and thirdly that the Chancellor attached undue weight to the level of local opposition which in his view was likely to undermine the mission and worship of the church.”
The Stewart Report, commissioned by the Government from the Independent Expert Group on Mobile Phones, part of the National Radiological Protection Board, said: “The continuing rapid growth in the use of conventional mobile phones indicates that most people do not consider the possibility of adverse health effects to be a major issue.”
It continued: “Given the much lower exposures to radiation from base stations than from handsets, the greater public concern from the people who gave evidence to the Expert Group about the former is paradoxical.”
