Residents say they weren't told about 100ft tower

A group of Enfield residents say they fear a hundred-foot radio telecom tower which is to be erected on their doorstep could place their health at risk.

Residents of Lincoln Road say not enough research has been done to disprove a possible link between electromagnetic radiation emitted from radio towers and cancers like leukaemia.

They say the tower, which has been given planning permission by Enfield Council, should not be built so close to their homes.

The 30m-tall structure, part of a telecommunications switching station, will stand in Unit Five of the Great Cambridge Industrial Estate, in Lincoln Road near the junction with Great Cambridge Road.

Work cannot start on it until the owner, Ioneca Ltd, reaches agreement with the council on a series of planning conditions.

But residents believe the structure should not have been given planning permission at all.

And they said they have not been sufficiently informed since the initial application was submitted in February last year.

Martin Molloy, whose house backs on to the industrial estate, said: "There's no way this should have been allowed without a public meeting and more consultation with residents.

"The fact is that hundreds of people live in roads near the site and most of us heard nothing about it until planning permission was granted."

The council's planning sub-committee gave permission in July for the tower to be erected on Unit Four but it failed to agree a lease with the owner,

Ioneca applied to put it on nearby Unit Five instead.

The plan was given the go ahead by the council in December -- but residents said that again they were not consulted.

Enfield Council insists it did send out letters informing residents about the tower, and has gone through all the proper consultation procedures.

And a council spokesman said that advice had been sought from the National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB), which provides advice on possible health risks from radiation sources.

"The advice it gave was that radio waves at ground level and in locations accessible to the public would be well below the safety guidelines," he said.

A review by the NRPB concluded that evidence of a link between electro-magnetic fields and cancer was weak.

But it also advises that the intensity of a field in the main radio beam can exceed safe within a few metres of a base station antenna.

Mr Molloy said: "We just don't know enough about the risks.

This is a residential area and when you're talking about cancer and leukaemia you just don't take any chances."

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