Sea Mills Square Mast
Response Letter

Introduction

At the meeting of the Sea Mills & Coombe Dingle Community Project on Tuesday 21 January 2003, we were told about the plan to put up a mobile phone mast on Sea Mills Square.   We agreed to write a letter in protest, and to circulate that letter as widely as possible.   This is that letter.

 

The Letter

24 January 2003

 
Dear S. Tucker,

Application No 02/04568/F/N

As convenors of the Sea Mills & Coombe Dingle Community Project our management committee have asked us to write in response to an application to erect a ten metre high telecom monopole with three 1.7m antennae in Sea Mills Square (139 Shirehampton Rd and 37 St Edyths Rd, Sea Mills, Bristol).

We object to this development as unsuitable for its location, ie

1. it would be within highway land in a residential area, and
2. the location is within a conservation area.

Our comments supporting our objections are as follows:

The location (1) proposed, that is to say back-of-pavement immediately outside Ideal Chemists, will obstruct pedestrians (particularly the many old people who live in Sea Mills) and service traffic to and from the chemists. It is important to note that the pole would be freestanding and therefore even more intrusive than if at back-of-pavement position backed by a fence. Bearing in mind the plethora of street furniture that threatens to further clog up pavements we believe this proposal to be one intrusion too many.

In connection with objection (2) it may be helpful to you to know that our committee have been working hard to improve facilities, safety and environmental standards in Sea Mills. Recently we have been involved with work to make Sea Mills Square (by which this stretch of Shirehampton Rd is locally known) a safer place, under an initiative addressing child pedestrian casualty rates in this area. This has culminated in a traffic calming scheme now on site.

Furthermore, the Community Project have long had an ambition to improve other aspects of the Square, primarily to (a) help make it a better space for modern needs, (b) to revitalise it as a more attractive shopping centre and (c) to encourage fuller use by local people of all age groups. In doing this we are very aware of the need to consider practical needs - safe routes, reduction in wind speed, sustainable planting etc - as well as the individual quality of the Square as a set-piece of pre-war town planning.

The features of Sea Mills worth conserving are particularly vulnerable. The road layout of the conservation area follows classic post-ww1 geometry, and the architecture is simple and unpretentious. Planting and open space - of which the Square is our foremost example - are vital components in its make-up. All these features, perhaps less remarkable when taken individually, are immeasurably more important as an ensemble; they are all too easily spoiled, and remain at risk unless looked after through an informed and sensitive approach.

The fact that Sea Mills Square is a key component of the Sea Mills Conservation Area has made us particularly sensitive to the options that might be acceptable in any future reshaping of the Square, and consequently we regard the intrusion of a 10m high pole in such a visible position as unacceptably detrimental to the local environment.

Yours sincerely

Paul Hazelden, Graham Quinn, Fay Wilkinson
for Sea Mills & Coombe Dingle Community Project