Angry residents battle third attempt to place towering 5G mast in the middle of their Milton Keynes estate

A giant telecommunications company is making a third bid to erect a towering 5G mast in the middle of an MK estate.

And fed-up residents have launched yet another protest, saying it is far too close to houses.

CK Hutchinson, acting for Three, first applied to erect a 15m high mast on Walton Road in Walnut Tree early in 2022. Walton Community Council and many residents objected, saying the structure would be an “alien feature” on their streetscape.

The application was refused by Milton Keynes City Council.

A few months later Hutchinson’s made a second attempt, this time to place the mast on a small patch of verge adjacent to Walton Road, between Pinfold and Honeysuckle Court.

Again, this was refused by the council.

Now the company has put in another application, hoping it will be third time lucky. The new site is on Hindhead Knoll, close to the first proposed area and just 12.5 metres away from the nearest house.

"The mast is not in keeping with the character of area and would have a strongly negative and detrimental visual impact,” said one resident.

It would be metres away from the edge of an old oak tree and the base cabinets would be on the corner of land that sees very heavy pedestrian traffic crossing the road including visitors to the health centre, the GP surgery, the Hindhead Knoll community space, the adjacent local centre, the nursery and pupils from Walton High.

“Reducing the visibility for cars on this busy junction by siting a base station there will lead to potentially fatal accidents,” said the resident.

He says the landowner’s policy states MKCC won’t normally permit equipment on its land within 50m of residential properties

MK City Council’s Telecommunications System Policy Supplementary Planning Document also states that the council will seek to minimise the (visual) impact of such masts.

Ward councillor Jenni Ferrans has previously expressed concerns about the Hutchinson applications, saying: “This operator seems to require masts at shorter distances than others with no explanation and no evidence of attempts to share masts.

"There’s no evidence that they have explored alternative positions for the mast in the immediate area and have not defined the area that they are seeking to cover.”

Residents say other telecoms companies, including Vodafone, O2, EE, have managed to site their 5G masts in MK on grid roads or roundabouts.

"As the technology is identical, why can Hutchison/Three not do the same?” they ask.

Hutchinson’s have, in the past, had similar bids refused in Woughton on the Green and also Blakelands.

But a spokesman for Three has said: “5G rollout is vital for residents and businesses of Milton Keynes. We want to offer the community a reliable network experience and this site will be critical to making that happen.

“Masts needs to be situated where people will be using the service and, in precise locations to ensure the widest breadth of coverage. We carry out extensive searches and surveys to evaluate all the options. We then choose the option most likely to gain planning approval from the local council. This will include showing we have minimised the impact on residents and the locality.”