Skip to main content

Pact ends mobile phone rows with national parks

The Guardian: "The 'treaty of best practice' commits the Mobile Operators' Association, all 13 national parks and the Association for Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty to work together and avoid legal battles, and involves concessions by all parties.

'The national parks have won some [battles], the masts have won some and lawyers have won them all,' said Mick Casey of the Lake District national park, where furious rows have taken place over masts proposed for felltops or close to Wordsworth shrines such as Dove Cottage.

The accord acknowledges that local pressure for conservation has been balanced increasingly by people wanting their mobile phones to work, including fell rescue teams who use them in searches and to email injured climbers' medical data to hospitals.

Martin Fitton, the chief executive of the Association of National Park Authorities, said: 'People living in and visiting national parks want the same communication services as the rest of the country. This gives us all a great challenge to make provision without damaging our finest landscapes.'

The agreement binds operators to hold preliminary discussions with planning consultants, national park officers and other interested parties before preparing a provisional plan for new masts. The five network operators - 3, O2, Orange, T-Mobile and Vodafone - have also agreed to share masts if possible and put more money into new designs.

'Material which is permeable by radio waves is increasingly successful,' Christine Jude of the Mobile Operators' Association said. 'You could have a mast on a Lake District farmhouse concealed by a fibreglass 'chimney' looking like the real thing. The angel on top of Guildford cathedral has a mast hidden under a fibreglass section of his robe.'

Masts have also been disguised successfully as telegraph poles in the Yorkshire Dales national park, complete with false wood-graining which has revived a Victorian decorative skill. Fake trees have been less successful."

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Josh Nimoy @ ITP - BallDroppings

Josh Nimoy @ ITP - BallDroppings : "BallDroppings is an addicting and noisy play-toy. It can also be seen as an emergence game. My brother Marc takes this software seriously as an audio-visual performance instrument. Balls fall from the top of the screen and bounce off the lines you are drawing with the mouse. The balls make a percussive and melodic sound, whose pitch depends on how fast the ball is moving when it hits the line."

Artist turns animals into everyday objects

Ananova - A Chilean artist is making a name for herself with an exhibition in which stuffed animals are transformed into household objects. Artworks on display include a chick turned into a lamp, and 'sheep bag' - a lamb carcass fitted with handles. Artist Caterina Purdy says her exhibition at the Experimental Arts Centre in Santiago is intended to be humorous but also makes a serious point. She told Las Ultimas Noticias online: 'It is possible to see my work as something scary, but I find it beautiful. 'There is also irony and humour in my objects as well as a criticism of the way animals are treated by society.'"

W Ketchup™

W Ketchup™ : "You don’t support Democrats. Why should your ketchup? W Ketchup™ is made in America, from ingredients grown in the USA. In side-by-side taste tests of five leading brands, we found that W Ketchup is second to none. You'll never go back to Heinz again! W Ketchup is America’s Ketchup™"