Decision made on 5G mast plan at site of Walsall business which was source of cyanide spillage

Cornerstone Telecommunications Infrastructure already has a mast on the Anochrome Ltd site but was served a notice to quit after the owner planned to redevelop the land.

The notice means Cornerstone must decommission and remove the existing mast, and lose the station from the network.

The new proposals were to replace the existing station elsewhere on the Reservoir Place site, but with a bigger mast offering upgraded services including 2G, 3G and 5G technologies.

Anochrome Ltd was recently identified by the Environment Agency as the source of toxic chemical spillage in August.

Approximately 4,000 litres of sodium cyanide leaked into the nearby canal, leading to the closure of a 12-mile stretch of the waterway.

Currently, the incident has been moved into a recovery phase. The impact on the wildlife is not yet known, but it is understood that it could take years for the ecosystem to recover.

Planning officers at Walsall Council said the reasons to refuse Cornerstone’s monopole plans was the size of the proposed mast and that it would not fit the street scene.

The existing mast and proposed mast are both 23.1 metres in height. However, the proposed mast would have supported six antennas and two dishes, whereas the current mast is a linear pole.

The council said the proposed monopole would be seen in a sensitive location which could be harmful for passers-by at the industrial estate and residents on Darlaston Road, which is over 100 metres away.

Planning officers also said the development would result in the ‘intensification of masts in the area’, and insufficient information was submitted to detail why mast-sharing wasn’t a viable option or why the mast couldn’t be fixed to an existing building.

The proposed location of the mast is located within an industrial estate. It is opposite the SPARK site, formally the James Bridge Copper Works. The 40-acre site was nicknamed the ‘most polluted in Europe’.

In the proposals, Cornerstone said it did search for opportunities for mast-sharing but no viable alternatives were identified. Thirteen alternative site locations were explored, none of which were preferred over the proposed site.

Cornerstone Telecommunications Infrastructure said: “An existing Cornerstone Vodafone base station installation at Anochrome Ltd was issued a notice to quit by the site provider. The site provider is redeveloping their land and thus Cornerstone has a legal requirement to remove the equipment.

“To ensure that network coverage and capacity is not lost, a new location for a replacement base station has been identified elsewhere on the existing site provider’s land, as close as practicable to the existing site.”