MYSELF, along with a number of other local residents, attended a meeting of the planning control committee in Bury town hall, to protest about the installation of a mobile telephone mast at the bacon factory on Stanley Road, Whitefield.
My home lies in close proximity to the factory and a number of new dwellings are being built on the former site of Parkside Childrens' Home.
That site is almost totally encircled by industrial units and is of special concern to the management of the bacon factory. On this I agree with them.
Permission for residential dwellings in a zone designated for industrial use should never have been granted.
Had this application by T-Mobile (UK) been made after the erection of the new development, objections would no doubt have been much greater.
I have no doubt whatsoever that this application has been made before the development could be completed, for that very reason. The residents in this part of the borough already live in one of the most heavily polluted parts of the country, as has again been highlighted by the readings taken at the pollution monitoring station at Junction 17 of the M60, a stone's throw away.
There is noise pollution from the M60 and M66 motorways, and from the industrial units adjacent to our homes.
I have, on a number of occasions, complained about, and asked for a ban on, visiting lorries parking up all night with engines and freezer motors running. The ban has been refused time and again.
Now there is to be a mast which will tower some 50ft above our homes, with all the potential risks to health attached, to say nothing of the visual detraction and the effect of the value of these homes.
I do not blame T-Mobile, nor the bacon factory, I am disgusted with the local authority which time and again has not defended or supported the residents of this locality against some of the industry adjacent to our properties I have a thick sheaf of correspondence going back some years, to testify to the fact.
A member of the planning department at Bury Metro admitted to me some years ago that residential and industrial areas being so close together should never have been allowed, yet instead of trying to improve our lives the local authority constantly appears to do the opposite.
The planning meeting, in my opinion, was a travesty of democracy. Two minutes only was allowed to speak for and against the application.
While I can see the need for such restriction, the person who tried to put the objection did his best but was nervous and unused to public speaking.
There was no debate, apart from that allowed to the councillors, and one of them stated that there was no point in objecting to the proposal because it would be overturned on appeal, costing the tax-payers thousands of pounds!
That is a scandal. We pay through our taxes for that service and councillors should fight for it to be free.
I expect councillors to stand up to the government as they are elected to represent us as best they can.
Similarly, we pay the salaries of the local authority employees through our taxes, that means that they are employed to serve us not dominate us and we should have been properly notified and consulted about this proposal.
Only 18 residents were notified. I found this out by default some time later when a planning officer was seen at 7.30am on a Saturday morning visiting the locality.
A neighbour asked him what he was doing and that is when we found out - to be treated this way is totally unacceptable.
It is about time we dispensed with the dictatorship and went back to being a democracy.
MICHAEL WYATT,
Whitefield
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