The Association has received a number of emails querying why we have remained silent over the proposed 5G Mask in Thames Street. To put the record straight, we reproduce below the representation made by the Chairman on 17th December 2021:

Subject: FW: SPN20391-Planning pre-consultation enquiry for proposed new telecommunications mast on Thames Street, Sunbury-on-Thames,Spelthorne, Surrey,TW16 5QH

Dear Sirs

I am writing on behalf of the Lower Sunbury Residents Association.

May I firstly welcome the introduction and expansion of the 5G network as this is widely seen to be essential to the future of technical communications.

The proposal states that ‘As per the extract from the Spelthorne Borough Council Plan we note that this site is not located within a designated Conservation Area.’. This is wrong. We’ve plotted the proposed mast site on Spelthorne’s own map which shows the outline of the Lower Sunbury Conservation Area; it is well within it. This would also exclude it from all of Sunbury Park , Orchard Meadow , the Walled Garden and the two car parks.

The proposal rightly rejects other possible sites within the ‘Nomination Point’ circle – in The Avenue, Kingsmead Avenue and Saxonbury Avenue – as being ‘Residential street’ and/or ‘overlooked by residential properties’, and yet the proposed location in Thames Street is also a residential street and additionally places the mast and its antennae adjacent to two multi-story blocks of flats and close to a primary school? This is surely wrong?

It also hardly seems sensible to have such a tall mast and its attendant large cabinets taking up space on a pedestrian pavement on a busy street.

There are a number of points we would like clarification on, please:

In terms of services the mast obviously needs power –  and we also note from the specification that it is only receiving transmission data from the fibre network. Does this mean that it has therefore to be located on a pavement above a fibre network route, or can it be installed at an alternative location with a new separate fibre feed routed to it?

With regard to the map shown as Figure1 on p2 of the Site Detail Sheet document, just above the ‘blue circle’ map what does the ‘green marker’ refer to?

We would like to propose that you, the surveying company, or 5G company, talk to LoSRA directly and for us potentially to understand more clearly what the constraints are, and suggest/discuss where any mast might sensibly go. It seems to us that a location away from housing and schools and not on a pavement would make more sense. Within the proposer’s Nomination point circle there might be some less obtrusive alternatives.

Finally, we should like to know why the specification is showing the use of Huawei 5G equipment when that has, we believe, now been banned by the UK Government?

Paul Thompson

Hon Chairman

LoSRA