TELECOMMUNICATIONS giant Optus Mobile is set to press ahead with the development of a mobile phone base station outside the Greenbrook Shopping Centre in McDonalds Rd, Epping, after Whittlesea City Council gave the project the nod at its meeting last week.
The tower, which will effectively replace a light pole outside the strip of shops, will be light grey and just under 14 metres high – and Optus has acknowledged that some “visual impact” is inevitable. The company is developing the site in conjunction with Vodafone Australia.
The unanimous support from councillors was offered despite community objections to the proposal. Nearby residents had raised concerns about the potential for the development to create an eyesore, as well as concerns about the prospect of radiation from the mobile phone base station.
Councillor John Fry told the meeting that in today’s mobile communications-dependent society, phone towers and base stations were a necessity.
He said he understood that some members of the community had concerns about possible health issues about the towers but said Australian regulations governing mobile phone facilities were stricter than those in other parts of the world.
A report presented to last week’s council meeting cited advice from the Australian Communications and Media Authority, which said: “The weight of national and international expert opinion is that there is no substantiated evidence that there are adverse health effects resulting from the emissions of mobile phone towers or base stations.”
The advice went on to say: “Generally several base station antennas are mounted on a tower that is between 15 to 20 metres high, or on rooftops. When transmitting, these antennas typically emit a fan-shaped beam, roughly parallel to the ground. Because of the narrow vertical spread of the beam, the radiofrequency field intensity on the ground directly below the antennas is low. At the points accessible to the public, emissions are usually thousands of times below the level at which known health effects can occur.”
At least one of the objections to the project noted the proximity of shops, homes, transport, a primary and a high school and maternal child health facilities.
