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| Fury over mobile phone mast
‘protection racket’ |
Tenants plunged into bidding war
with landlords to stop T-Mobile
PAY up or shut up – that’s the message residents of
a Chalk Farm block of flats have been given after they objected
to the siting of a phone mast above their homes.
Pensioners and families have been plunged into a head-to-head bidding
war with mobile phone giant T-Mobile who have won planning permission
to fix a mast on their roof.
Residents have been informed T-Mobile has made an offer to rent
the site but that no decision will be made until leaseholders have
had the opportunity to match the offer.
They are incensed at what they see as “a protection operation”.
In a letter to the New Journal last week, Sol Unsdorfer, acting
for landlords Shellpoint Trustees said: “If T-Mobile now make
an offer to the landlords for the leasing of the area, with the
benefit of their planning consent, the best we can do is to ask
the landlords to offer leaseholders the opportunity to match the
rental offer as a means of allaying their fears and concerns.”
But tenants are fuming at the thought that they are being asked
to pay to stop the move.
Tenant Maria-Luisa Minio-Paluello said: “We are being threatened.
We are being offered the opportunity to “match the offer”,
meaning we have to pay them not to deface our building and perhaps
endanger our lives. It’s a protection operation.”
Ms Minio-Paluello’s neighbour Julia Walker has enlisted the
help of MP for Hampstead and Highgate Glenda Jackson and written
to the Office of the Telecommunications Ombudsman (Otelo) for help.
She said: “The landlord and Mr Unsdorfer are in a win-win situation
and we’re in a strange situation through no fault of our own.
Although he phrased it in soft terms, basically it’s extortion.”
Ms Walker, who is determined to take the matter as far as she can,
vowed to take the campaign to a national level.
Under planning laws, an agent does not have to own a piece of land
to apply for planning permission.
Mr Unsdorfer denied T-Mobile made any cash offers to the company
before permission was granted last week.
He said: “Numerous cellular operations have propositioned the
Etons over the years, but their applications were never taken seriously
without planning permission.
“T-Mobile did not require anyone’s consent to apply for
planning permission, neither were they encouraged in any way to
do so by the landlord.”
He said no prior lease agreement had been made with T-Mobile, nor
had any conditional consent been granted.
Mr Unsdorfer added: “The landlord is a property owner and an
investment is an investment.
“There are phone masts on many other properties all over London
and if a profit is to be made. The landlord has been totally passive
in this matter. He has not sent any letters in support of it or
lobbied for permission to be granted and in the circumstances will
regard any application for a lease on a purely economical business-like
basis.” |
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Don't waste your finest on relatives
DO you enjoy or endure Christmas? It isn’t only that we’re
bullied into spending money we haven’t got.
FULL STORY
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