Agenda item

So as to provide the best opportunity for the Committee to provide the public with the fullest answer, questions from the public should be submitted by midday on Friday 15 September 2023.

Where relevant notice of a question has not been given, the person presiding may either choose to give a response at the meeting or respond by undertaking to provide a written response within three working days.

Questions should be submitted to Democratic Services –

democratic.services@adur-worthing.gov.uk

(Note:  Public Question Time will last for a maximum of 30 minutes)

There were three pre submitted questions received from the public and one question submitted at the meeting. 

1. Is the council aware that the ICNIRP Guidelines state that people with "implantable medical devices" and "metallic implants" in the body are "outside the scope of these guidelines" (as mentioned on page 2 of the 2020 ICNIRP Guidelines report) and, therefore, does the council agree that such people are particularly vulnerable and need to be afforded extra protection under the council's obligations within the Health and Social Care Act 2012?

 If there is no disability impact assessment in relation to this technology, it could be argued that provisions of the Equality Act 2010 may well have been broken.

(Background information)

The ICNIRP Guidelines published in 2009 state: 

SCOPE AND PURPOSE: "These guidelines apply to occupational and general public exposure to static magnetic fields. The guidelines do not apply to the exposure of patients undergoing medical diagnosis or treatment. Detailed consideration of protection of patients is given in an ICNIRP statement on protection of patients undergoing a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) examination." https://www.icnirp.org/cms/upload/publications/ICNIRPMR2009.pdf

FURTHERMORE, the ICNIRP 1998 guidelines state that the prevention of harm and advice about interference is beyond the scope of ICNIRP. https://www.icnirp.org/cms/upload/publications/ICNIRPemfgdl.pdf 

“Compliance with the present guidelines may not necessarily preclude interference with, or effects on, medical devices such as metallic prostheses, cardiac pacemakers and defibrillators, and cochlear implants. Interference with pacemakers may occur at levels below the recommended reference levels. Advice on avoiding these problems is beyond the scope of the present document but is available elsewhere (UNEP/WHO/IRPA1993). These guidelines will be periodically revised and updated as advances are made in identifying the adverse health effects of time-varying electric, magnetic and electromagnetic field.” 

AND 

Global System for Mobile Communications (GSMA), "a global organisation unifying the mobile ecosystem" states: 

"ICNIRP says that the updated guidelines provide a high level of protection for all people against substantiated adverse health effects from exposures to both short- and long-term, continuous and discontinuous radio frequency EMFs…The guidelines exclude electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) considerations, the influence of implanted metallic implants and the application of RF-EMF for medical procedures." https://www.gsma.com/publicpolicy/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/GSMA_International_EMF_Exposure_Guideline_Oct21.pdf 

NOTE:  OFCOM states that "We refer to the 1998 Guidelines, the 2020 Guidelines and any subsequent version collectively as the “ICNIRP Guidelines”."

The Planning Services Manager replied - 

The question mentions both the Social Care Act and the Equality Act. This is a question for the Planning Committee and in terms of dealing with these applications, the National Planning Policy Framework, paragraph 118, dictates that the planning authorities must determine these applications on planning grounds only. Therefore, I think the question is wider than the scope of this Planning Committee. In the vast majority of applications for 5G masts that we receive, the Council can only determine them on the siting and appearance of those masts. We do receive many comments on health grounds on every mast application. We have lost half a dozen of these on appeal and at each point the inspector will make a very brief comment saying that health concerns are not something for the local planning authorities to consider. 

The wider questions about the provisions of the Equalities Act and whether the obligations under the Health and Social Care Act are complied with or not are beyond the scope of the Planning Committee because of what we can deal with. In terms of planning guidance we are effectively being directed away from dealing with that matter any further.

I think there are wider questions that the Full Council could consider but in terms of the Planning Committee Officers and Members, we have to deal with these applications within the National Planning Policy Framework and that guidance states we can only deal with applications on planning grounds.

2.    "The National Planning Policy Framework has sustainability at its core.  Paragraph 152 of Chapter 14 says that 'the Planning system should support the transition to a low carbon future...'  The Worthing Local Plan also seeks to 'support the move to zero carbon', with Strategic Objective 19 claiming to 'ensure development helps the borough to adapt and increase its resilience to the effects of climate change...' 

The Council has approved at least six 5G installations in Worthing (and the Planning Inspectorate has approved several more, on Appeal).  These use enormous amounts of energy.  It has been calculated that a single 5G base station uses as much power as 73 average homes, which is a threefold increase over 4G (the source of this is a publication by the Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers). 

Does the Committee agree that there is a conflict of interest between the huge power requirements of 5G base stations and the Council's priority of aiming for net zero by 2030 and if the Council is not factoring the energy use of these masts into their net zero aim, how can it claim to be working towards it in the first place?"

The Planning Services Manager replied - 

The National Planning Policy Framework does mention sustainability in many of its aspects and the paragraph that the speaker has quoted, is one part of the NPPF as well, but there are also specific requirements in terms of how we deal with telecommunications applications. Paragraph 114 of the NPPF states that planning policies and decisions should support the expansion of electronic communications networks, including 5G, and as I mentioned in my reply to the previous question, in paragraph 118 of the NPPF, it also states that planning authorities must determine planning applications on planning grounds only. So, the difficulty here is that the vast majority of these applications, where they require permission at all, are only for the council to consider the siting and appearance of these masts. If there is an energy usage with them then that is a matter for the wider realm and not the planning committee. Equally, given government guidance, and the way it is written, the other benefits of mobile technology, including increased accessibility around the borough and district would also be taken into account. I think that the speaker has raised an issue but there are also wider issues to take into account. I go back to my original point, in terms of the applications we receive, and what the committee can deal with, it is only siting and appearance.

The speaker asked a supplementary question - 

Can I take this question to the full council meeting in October or to the Joint Strategic Committee who approved the Carbon neutral plan? Would either of those committee’s be likely to consider this issue?

The Planning Services Manager replied - 

You are entitled to submit a question to the Full Council according to the constitution. Within my answer, as this is a Planning Committee, I have concentrated on Planning Committee grounds. But the question the speaker is asking seems to be wider in its scope and is looking at wider Council objectives so it makes a degree of sense to take it to the Full Council meeting.

3.      (This question was not pre submitted prior to the meeting).

  The Worthing Borough Council planning portal has revealed that since 2020 all but 3 of the 5G mast applications, which is some 24 or so in number, have included a declaration of conformity to the ICNIRP public exposure guidelines in the name of Three UK Ltd. However, according to Companies House, Three UK Ltd was dissolved on 27th October 2015, so I am putting it to the committee that the declaration from a company that ceased to exist as a legal entity some 8 years ago, surely cannot legitimately support a current planning application. If I may proceed to say that the ICNIRP 2020 guidelines provide a very detailed mathematical model for quantifying the net RF radiation resulting from the interaction of an individual mast with other radiation sources in its vicinity and the fact that the applicants have repeatedly submitted invalid applications very much suggests that the Certifying Design Technician, which is the job title of the person who submits these declarations, has merely copied and pasted an out of date template without actually doing the requisite detailed computations. This, in turn, suggests that these Three UK Ltd declarations cannot be relied upon to provide an accurate guarantee of the conformity of each individual design. 

  The fact that Worthing Borough Council has continued to accept such applications suggests that they are not being subjected to the appropriate level of scrutiny. In the light of the clear invalidity of the aforementioned ICNIRP declarations will Worthing Borough Council now reject these applications as invalid?

The Planning Services Manager replied - 

I would rather respond to this question in writing and would need to know the specific applications the speaker is referring to.

The speaker clarified that he could provide the Planning Services Manager with this information.

The Head of Planning and Development replied - 

We can, in terms of future and or current applications, question the validity of ICNIRP statements. Obviously, we can't do anything about decisions that have been granted, but for new applications it is certainly something we can question the applicant about if they continue to refer to a company that no longer exists. Thank you for bringing this to our attention.

The speaker asked a supplementary question - 

How does your answer relate to current planning applications that haven’t yet received a judgement?

The Head of Planning and Development replied - 

We can ask the applicants to clarify the ICNIRP guidelines and who exactly did prepare them and whether the company still exists. In that way we can challenge any current applications as yet undetermined 

4.  (Read by the Head of Planning and Development) The A27 - particularly at Lyon’s Farm and Grove Lodge junctions is congested and have been shown to fail air quality measurements consistently for many years. Having granted planning permission for the opening of Lidl, (a company known to pay badly and with very dubious business ethics) which will bring more traffic - will the committee agree to  commission an independent review of the impact of this project on traffic and air quality in the area?

The Head of Planning and Development replied - 

It is important to stress, and members will be aware of this, that National Highways is responsible for the A27 in terms of management of traffic and air quality. National Highways was consulted on the application and, after several months of reviewing it, they raised no objections to the proposal. Members will be aware, and the public will probably also be aware, of the various studies of the A27 that have been undertaken and that there has been significant funding allocated to the A27 improvements through the Road Investment Strategy. The local community in the town were consulted about proposals last year and we are still waiting to understand what National Highways will do to address some of the congestion and air quality issues along this section of the A27 through Worthing. 

Notwithstanding the fact that the Council received no objections, both from National Highways and West Sussex County Council, the Planning Committee will recall that we did secure development contributions to mitigate air quality and also secured, from the developers, funding to improve Lyons Way by trying to ease congestion of traffic leaving the retail park, particularly of traffic turning left towards Brighton. So, although we had no highway objections, your Officers did negotiate, as part of that planning approval, quite significant funds allocated for road improvements to ease congestion and also to try and tackle some of the air quality issues. We will need to work with National Highways about the use of any funding secured in that planning permission to address air quality issues but the junction improvement proposed would try to minimise stationary traffic and ease some of the congestion issues.