Dales residents in dark over 5G mast plan: Yorkshire Post Letters

TODAY members of the Yorkshire Dales National Park planning committee will be asked to rule on whether a 15-metre high mast should be erected in the Coverdale hamlet of West Scrafton. Their task is fraught with difficulty.

The mast is part of a trial programme to bring better broadband and mobile coverage to parts of Coverdale.

While no-one would argue that these aren’t urgently needed, the roll-out of the programme is being done with little or no consultation with those most closely involved – those who live in the dale.

They know best what improvements they need to equip them in a modern world; they resent being bounced into accepting a programme they have been told so little about; they want guarantees that the 5G technology that would be employed will not have devastating impacts on the fragile environment in which they live.

It is because the answers to these issues have not been addressed that we ask authority representatives to defer any decision until the folk of Coverdale are in possession of all the facts they need to give informed consent.

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