Jesus Green mast plans quashed: Bridge House alternative approved - but Lib Dems say ‘trust in council shaken’

A long-running furore over the relocation of the mobile phone mast currently on the Cambridge City Council car park in Park Street is over.

The mast will now be relocated to Bridge House on Round Church Street by telecoms company MBNL, after its application was approved yesterday (April 21).

This means the temporary 30m high installation on Jesus Green, which caused consternation when it was announced earlier this year, will now not be necessary.

The saga started in 2019 when Cambridge City Council decided to demolish the car park on Park Street to make way for an £80m aparthotel. The mobile phone mast would have to be relocated elsewhere, but finding a solution proved difficult. In November 2020 Mobile Broadband Network Limited and its agent Waldon Telecom, the phone provider for the area, asked for the equipment to be moved to Bridge House, but there were concerns the mast would negatively impact the the conservation area protecting the city’s historic centre. Council leader Lewis Herbert suggested that a new application by Waldron Telecom was needed to correct the “errors” of the original proposal, and argued for the benefits of a Bridge House relocation.

Following further discussions with the council, MBNL submitted a full and more detailed planning application for the Bridge House site. Meanwhile Jesus Green had been put forward as a possible temporary solution – only for the suggestion to meet with public outrage. The situation became more heated when the Lib Dems accused the Labour-run city council of a cover-up about the location, and a petition drew 2,000 signatures.

With the decision now made, the political fallout begins: Labour councillors are celebrating the decision, while the Lib Dems are calling it a U-turn.

Labour councillors say they “advocated consistently on behalf of local residents, putting their concerns to the telecoms companies involved, which resulted in the new application going forward”. They say they also supported planning officers in gathering evidence to resolve environmental health queries about the appropriateness of the alternative location.

Ward councillors, who were consulted as part of the normal planning process, also supported the application.

Katie Thornburrow, executive councillor for planning policy and open spaces, said: “This will be a great relief to local residents and everyone who makes use of this important open space. It also shows the planning system working effectively. I said at the council meeting on February 25 that I hoped that we could deliver an outcome that everyone would be happy with, and that we would do this within eight weeks. The planning department have done what we hoped they would, and I’m grateful to the team for their rapid and thorough assessment.

“We have always been totally opposed to relocating the mast onto Jesus Green or any of the council’s common land, and I’m delighted that we’ve been able to find an alternative. Thank you especially to the Park Street Residents Association for all their work on this too, and to all who signed petitions to make sure that Cambridge residents’ voices were heard loud and clear.”

The Lib Dems saw the escapade rather differently.

A Lib Dem statement said: “Today Cambridge City Council has approved the erection of a phone antenna on Bridge House to replace the one which has been located on the city council car park in Park Street. It had rejected the same application in November last year. The council intends to demolish the car park in order to build a new aparthotel and had struck an agreement with the phone company to locate a new 30m high mast on the tennis courts on nearby Jesus Green, which resulted in large public protests.“

Cllr Katie Porrer (Lib Dem, Market ward) said: “Only in November the council rejected this same application to put the antenna on Bridge House, so news of this U-turn is really welcome. It is a tribute to all those city residents who campaigned so hard to avert the phone mast being erected on the Jesus Green tennis courts, which would have been a truly outrageous outcome. Over 2,000 signed our recent petition.

“Hopefully the Labour administration will now tear up the agreement it had already struck with the phone companies to permit them to put it on Jesus Green – and we will never hear of the idea again. They still must co-operate to ensure the new antenna can be installed before they start their car park demolition. This has shaken trust in the council as custodian of our public open spaces and it does now need to examine how tunnel-vision in its role as developer led to such an inversion of priorities and such a close shave.”

Chair of the Park Street Residents Association, Roy MacGregor, said: “The Jesus Green Association, the Park Street Residents Association and local residents are all delighted at the successful application to place the mast in a very suitable and subtle location, which does not have a material impact on the local environment or scenery”.

He added: “The wider council and all political parties opposed it on the green and I’m pleased that common sense has prevailed”.

Additional reporting: Ben Hatton, Local Democracy Reporter

Read more

Bridge House application could remove need for 100ft mast on Jesus Green in Cambridge

Jesus Green phone mast row: Labour-run Cambridge City Council denies Lib Dem claims of ‘cover-up’

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