A 20M-HIGH ‘blue light’ mobile phone mast could be sited on farmland overlooking a loop in the River Wye.
A plan for the 4G tower at Courtfield Farm close to Kerne Bridge has been sent to Herefordshire planners by mobile network giant EE, which says the Wye Valley AONB site is the only place available to provide emergency services network coverage in the area.
The company has been selected by the government to develop the new ‘blue-light’ communications service, with a remit to provide coverage across the UK.
It claims that several other sites in the area, including in nearby Goodrich were considered, but all were rejected as unsuitable.
EE’s planning agent Damian Hosker said the company had been contracted by the Home Office “to extend critical site coverage across some of the hard-to-reach areas of the UK”.
He said a “challenging search” was undertaken to identify an (elevated) cell-site location to “provide infill coverage to a stretch of the B4234 running through the valley between Lower Lydbrook and Leys Hill where coverage is notably lacking”.
The steeply sloped site beside Thomas Wood in the shadow of Coppett Hill would allow full road coverage, including at the bend in the road at Joy’s Green, he added.
While EE was aware of the importance of the Wye Valley’s Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty status, there was a “vital national need for ESN” in the area, and the site would be decommissioned and cleared after 20 years, he said.
The proposed development, which will be in sight of parts of the Wye Valley Walk, consists of a lattice tower on a concrete base in a fenced 100m sq compound accessed by a 235m-long stone track.
Six antennae and a 6m diameter telecommunications dish would be mounted on top, and a 1.2m-diameter satellite dish would also be installed, along with four cabinets on concrete bases on the ground.
The site lies on a finger of land surrounded on three sides by the distinctive loop of the River Wye between Goodrich and Ruardean.
A report by Camlin Lonsdale Landscape Architects says people using the Wye Valley Walk on the north bank of the Wye would see the top of the mast emerging “intermittently” from behind Thomas Wood, while residents and visitors in Hazelhurst, Bishopswood Grange, Keme Bndge and Lower Lydbrook Park, and the mobile home park beside the B4234, may see parts of it.
Herefordshire planners have been asked to decide whether EE needs to make a formal planning application for the mast.