• MONMOUTH House on the Raglan estate is the subject of a plan to install mobile phone masts on its roof. This residential tower block is situated directly opposite St Patrick’s primary school, and the Raglan estate itself has many young children living there.

The proposed installations are being justified on the grounds that they are fully compliant with the public exposure guidelines established by the International Commission on Non-Ionising Radiation Protection (icnirp).

The problem with these current guidelines was highlighted by The Lancet in December 2018. “These standards were set up in the 1990s on the belief that only acute thermal effects are hazardous. The prevention of tissue heating by radio frequency electromagnetic radiation is now proven to be ineffective in preventing biochemical and physiological interference. For example, acute non-thermal exposure has been shown by scientists to alter human brain metabolism, electrical activity in the brain, and systemic immune responses”.

The website world health.net highlighted particular issues with regards to children: “Hyper­conductivity of their brain tissue, greater penetration of radio frequency radiation relative to head size, greater susceptibility of the developing nervous system, and their potential for a longer accumulative lifetimes’ exposure.” All of this is particularly worrying given the location of Monmouth House.

National planning law on the location of mobile phone masts specifically demands that officials ignore all issues of health when making their decisions. They can, however, consider things like if the masts would spoil the view should you happen to live in a conservation area.

The effects of this capitulation by the political class to the needs of big business were highlighted in MailOnline in 2008 which covered a story from the West Midlands where 14 people died of cancer in a seven-year period and a further 20 developed tumours and survived, all of whom lived within a mile radius of the same mobile phone mast which was classed as being within UK safety guidelines.

With regards to the proposals for Monmouth House, Camden Council has to go beyond the ludicrous rules of national planning law. Camden has a statutory duty to protect the health of its citizens. This clearly overrides any considerations of a rigged planning system and must be enforced by officials and elected representatives working together to oppose the mobile phone giants.

The borough solicitor Andrew Maughan, the director of public health Julie Billett, all three Kentish Town ward councillors, (Georgia Gould, Meric Apak and Jenny Headlam Wells) and our MP Sir Keir Starmer, have to show that they value the health of Camden’s citizens above the interests of big business.

They must go public in the New Journal about how they intend to do this and they must be prepared to hold a borough-wide public meeting on the entire issue of mobile phone masts because, make no mistake, this issue affects each and every one of us in Camden.

Those wishing to oppose the scheme for Monmouth House I urge to email Diane Perry, the consultant planner of Clarke Telecom.

The email address is: tweeddevelopmentplanning@gmail.com and I would also include your ward councillors and MP in any email you send. Letters to the press are also a particularly useful tool for ensuring that those in charge get the message on these issues loud and clear.

LOUIS LOIZOU
Raglan Street, NW5