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Orange to remove mobile mast from 'tower of doom', where cancer rate has soared
Last updated at 23:52pm on 06.08.07
John Llewellin: Died last month
Three have died and another four have battled the disease since two masts were erected on the roof of the five-storey block which has become known locally as the Tower of Doom.
The cancer rate on the top floor - where residents of five of the eight flats have been affected and the three who died all lived - is 20 per cent, ten times the national average.
Residents of Berkeley House in Staple Hill, Bristol, also complain of terrible headaches and other ailments which they blame on radiation from the masts.
Orange has agreed to remove its mast after a five-year campaign by residents and pressure from the local authority. But it has caused anger with plans to move it to a residential street nearby.
The other mast belongs to Vodafone, which has no plans to move it.
The most recent death was that of John Llewellin, 63, who lost his battle against bowel cancer two weeks ago.
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Anger: The mast (circled) on the block known to locals as the Tower of Doom
Two years ago, Barbara Wood died in her 70s from breast cancer. Two years earlier Joyce Davies died, also from breast cancer.
Danger zone: Residents at this Bristol flat have suffered illness and death
The other victims on the top floor are Hazel Frape, 63, who has had breast cancer, and 89-year-old Phyllis Smith who moved out after she contracted the same disease.
On the fourth floor Bernice Mitchell, 69, has battled womb cancer. On the second floor, 78-year-old Barbara Watts, who has lived in the block for 31 years, is in remission from breast cancer.
Many of the 110 residents, including Doreen Sheppard, 74, have complained of headaches and other health problems.
She said: "The masts are bound to be doing something. I get terrible headaches and I've started suffering from Meniere's disease, where I lose my balance. I'm worried about the children on the estate as there are so many of them now."
Both masts were erected in 1994. South Gloucestershire Council served a notice asking for them to be removed when the ten-year contract expired three years ago.
But because current guidelines say there is no risk from radiation the council does not have a legal right to force their removal.
After a long legal battle Orange has submitted a planning application to put the mast on top of a shopping precinct in a street near homes, a primary school and a public library.
Left alone: Moira Llewellin's husband died of cancer, one of three flat residents to die
Jeanette McCormack, 69, who has led a campaign against the mast, said a petition against the new location had gathered more than 200 names.
She added: "People of all ages who live and work near the mast will be exposed to the radiation and so there's a lot of anger about it."
World Health Organisation guidelines have dismissed the risks of masts despite other evidence which has found they are harmful.
A spokesman for Orange said the company takes health and safety very seriously.
He added that the company was satisfied its mobile phone base stations do not present a health risk.
Vodafone is working on a new longterm lease from South Gloucestershire Council. A spokesman said the company took residents' concerns "extremely seriously" and would continue to work with them and the council to provide reassurance.
Up, up and away: Orange's controversial mobile phone mast will be no longer be a blot on the landscape
Reader views (14)
Here's a sample of the latest views published. You can click view all to read all views that readers have sent in.
It is important to know, that not only there is a significant risk linked to what is now called electro pollution, one wants to know that there are also solutions available. Having experienced them and improved my quality of live significantly, I now choose to spread the word and talk about the issue and solutions.
I agree with the opinion of C.D. Thomson, that the science has its own limitations. I learned it the hard way, when my husband died, at age 35, of the consequences of a massive brain haemorrhage. His case had been studied in the best hospitals and universities, and, of course, scientific doctors who supposedly own the truth had told him for the last 2 years of his life that he had nothing, he was just too stressed out. The autopsy revealed, 10 months later, that he had brain cancer, likely more than one. By the way, he had used technology intensely in the last few years of his life, after going back to school and starting his own business.
Do you care to protect your brain and the health of your loved ones? There are solutions.
- Christine Veillette, Longueuil, QC, Canada
Those who understand probability and statistics will also understand that it is probable that a cancer cluster will occur in the absence of a cause ... just as sometimes coin flipping will produce "heads" ten times in a row.
However, it's also possible that the cancers have a real cause in common and that it's not the cell antennae.
Science does not always produce results that are neat and simple ... and moving those towers may do more psychological harm to the populace at large than it does good for the individuals presumptively in their zone of danger.
The jury is still out. People need to take stock of all the risks in their lives and pay attention to the ones that really matter.
- Mark Hankins, Land O Lakes, FL
Peter from Ireland, if there is no problem with that mast on the building, where is the cancer coming from then? Also are the masts near to the water tanks for the building? What are the masts doing to the buildings water supply? More questions than answers here.
- Jeff, Luton
18°c
