Mobile phone masts at schools earn councils 'thousands'

Councils are earning hundreds of thousands of pounds by allowing telecoms firms to put mobile phone masts on schools and other civic buildings, it was reported today.

While many of the masts were on housing blocks and council offices, some - in Edinburgh, Oxfordshire, Portsmouth, York and Aberdeen - were found on schools.

A survey by More4 News Online found Birmingham City Council earned £590,000 from masts on its buildings, while five other councils revealed revenues of more than £100,000 a year.

The figures, obtained for 17 areas, prompted calls for the planning rules to be tightened amid fears over possible health risks linked to the masts.

Labour MP Dr Ian Gibson said: "I certainly think with the evidence as it stands that it's not safe to assume these masts can go close to schools, or other areas where lots of people live.

"I don't think that scientifically we are at a stage yet where these structures should just be allowed anywhere.

"But the masts make a lot of money for the councils and the Government is dragging its heels over adapting the rules.

"How do you weight taking half a million pounds against the health hazards that you may be creating and the problems that might come in terms of the future in hospitals and so on?

"The phone companies say 'there is no danger, there is no harm'.

"Well, they said that about asbestos, they've said it about many health hazards over the years and sadly it only comes out twenty or thirty years after the effects have been shown to have occurred."

There have been several high profile studies into the health risks of living near mobile phone masts.

Dr John Stather, of the radiation protection division at the Health Protection Agency, said: "All the measurements we have made demonstrate that exposures to the population are very small compared with the guidelines recommended for the general public.

"The information to date would suggest that exposures from base stations are very small and that these exposures should give no cause for public health concern."

The Local Government Association said ministers had urged councils to rent out the mast sites.

A spokesman for the LGA said: "Local authorities have been actively encouraged by the Government to make sites available to meet the demands of the growing telecommunications market.

"Applications of this nature are judged on a case by case basis, and councils will always take into account the opinions and well-being of local people when making a decision.

"This is income, after all, that can be spent on vital services for the community."

A spokesman for the LGA added later: "Councils are committed to delivering an ever better deal for taxpayers.

"Where a council does rent a site for use by a telecommunications company, it is obliged to get the maximum financial benefit for local people."

Copyright Press Association 2006