- Plans to erect 700 police radio transmitters across Scotland
are running into fierce opposition from local residents and environmental
campaigners alarmed about the dangers to human health and damage to the
landscape.
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- The mobile phone company O2 wants to install new aerial
transmitters in every region of the country over the next two years in
order to give the emergency services a comprehensive new digital communications
network. It has already submitted 200 planning applications, predominantly
in the south of Scotland.
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- Between 90 and 100 transmitters are planned in each of
seven police force areas: Strathclyde, Lothian and Borders, Dumfries and
Galloway, Central, Tayside, Grampian and Northern. A further 30 have been
proposed for Fife, the police force smallest area.
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- O2, which used to be part of BT, says that for at least
40% of the new transmitters it will have to erect masts. The company is
hoping that the remaining 60% can be fitted on existing masts or buildings.
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- But there are growing fears about the health risks of
the new trans-mitters, which some experts regard as more dangerous than
conventional mobile phone masts. The new £2.5 billion system being
introduced throughout the UK is known as Tetra -- Terrestrial Trunked Radio
-- and transmits a signal with a frequency of 17.6Hz.
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- This is very close to the frequency which the government's
Indepen dent Expert Group on Mobile Phones warned might affect brain activity.
In May 2000, it said: 'As a precautionary measure, amplitude modulation
around 16Hz should be avoided, if possible, in future developments.'
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- Some studies have suggested that radio waves around this
frequency could cause calcium to leak from the brain and other tissue.
This in turn could trigger damage to the nervous and immune systems.
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- According to Gerald Hyland, a biophysicist from the University
of Warwick, the electromagnetic radiation may also cause mood swings, headaches,
sleep disruption and short-term memory loss. It could even retard the academic
development of children.
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- Some people would be more susceptible than others, he
argued. He said, 'Is there an established potential risk to human health
from exposure to Tetra radiation? The answer is undoubtedly yes.'
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- Alison Mackay lives just 200 metres from the site of
a proposed new Tetra radio mast on Tarvit Hill near Cupar in Fife. She
is organising a campaign to oppose it, and other masts planned for the
area.
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- 'It is a techno-nightmare. This system has not been tried
and tested, which means that anyone living close to one of these masts
will in effect be a human guinea pig,' she said.
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- 'O2 should be required to prove conclusively that there
will be no long-term impact on human health before permission is given
for the system to be installed.' She accused the company of trying to erect
masts with as few people as possible knowing about them.
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- Other local residents are worried that the masts will
be an eyesore in an attractive landscape. 'We will take the campaign to
the Scottish Executive,' Mackay promised. 'And, if necessary, we will take
it to the courts.'
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- Police officers in England, where the Tetra system has
already been introduced to 10 forces, have complained of ill-health after
using the mobile handsets. According to one report, more than 170 officers
in Lancashire claimed to suffer from migraines, sleeplessness and lack
of concentration after using the system.
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- Tetra radio waves could also interfere with life-saving
equipment in hospitals. A government regulator, the Medical Devices Agency,
has warned that the operation of heart pacemakers, defibrillators and ventilators
could be affected.
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- An expert group set up by the government's National Radiological
Protection Board was equivocal about the health risks. It concluded that
'current evidence suggests that it is unlikely that the special features
of the signals from Tetra mobile terminals and repeaters pose a hazard
to health'.
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- But it added: 'Although, when viewed as a whole, the
epidemiological research that has been carried out does not give cause
for concern, it has too many limitations to provide assurance that there
is no hazard.'
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- Although the Scottish Executive insisted that it was
not complacent about the risks, it welcomed Tetra as 'the cutting edge
of 21st century technology'.
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- The system will, a spokeswoman said, 'improve police
effectiveness through a range of new features available to officers, including
greater clarity of voice communications, improved security and the potential
for officers to be linked to the public telephone network'.
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- O2 also stressed the benefits to police effectiveness
and public safety of the Tetra system, which it has branded Airwave. 'Airwave
aims to secure the level of service requested by police forces, whilst
taking into account local views and concerns about the siting of transmitters,'
said a spokeswoman for the company.
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- 'Health and safety issues are very important to us. Science
cannot categorically prove anything to be absolutely safe, but the World
Health Organisation holds a database of over 450 studies on the biological
effects of radio frequency emissions and no risk to health has been demonstrated.'
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- The company's reassurances were dismissed, however, by
a group called Mast Sanity which is campaigning across the UK against the
Tetra system. 'There has been no significant research into the effects
of Tetra and it is a totally unproven system,' said the group's director,
Lisa Oldham.
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- 'It is becoming an increasing problem for many campaign
groups in every corner of the country as the government tries to force
this dangerous system on us and on the police.'
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- Source: http://www.sundayherald.com/32689
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