February 25, 2015
Tingoora residents will ask NBNCo to explain why the company wants to build a 40 metre telecommunications tower close to the town rather than use of any of seven other potential sites it has identified in the area.
Residents are concerned the proposed site will reduce the visual amenity of the town and lower property values.
Some are also concerned that while the tower is expected to emit just 0.57 per cent of World Health Organisation standards for radiation, it might expose residents – particularly children – to an unacceptable risk.
On Wednesday afternoon a group of a dozen local residents met with Division 6 councillor Ros Heit and SBRC Manager Planning and Land Management Chris Du Plessis near Tingoora’s Hill Street water tower to get further information about the tower proposal.
Mr Du Plessis said NBNCo originally intended to build a tower in forestry land abutting the Wondai-Chinchilla Road.
There had been no objections to this, so Council had approved NBNCo’s application in March 2013.
The tower would form part of a network of wireless broadband towers the company has been erecting in the region over the past two years.
Towers of similar height were already operating in other parts of the South Burnett.
However, the company now wanted to change the Tingoora tower site because it had discovered the owners of the land at the original location were in receivership.
This meant NBNCo couldn’t obtain a secure lease on the tower site, and had to consider other options.
The company now wants to build its tower in a field at 39 Swartz’s Road, a few hundred metres north of the Tingoora water tower.
The new site would be about 160m from the nearest residence and 800m from Tingoora State School.
Residents were first told about the change on February 10 when NBNCo’s infrastructure delivery contractors Daly International placed a public notice in a local newspaper calling for public comment on the proposal.
Mr Du Plessis said the call for public comment was a standard part of the community consultation process NBNCo had to go through before submitting any tower proposal to Council for approval, but residents were very welcome to submit objections to it if they wished.
Cr Heit said if the Tingoora community didn’t want an NBN tower at the new location, then Council would not grant approval for it.
“Council is here to represent the best interests of residents and the town, and we will work on your behalf to get the best outcome.”
She said any tower in the area needed the community’s full support before it could proceed, so lodging objections was the quickest way to demonstrate the new location was unacceptable.
A second public meeting held two hours later at the Tingoora State School chapel, attended by about 40 residents, agreed the Tingoora community wants the national broadband network in the area.
The meeting also hoped that once the $700,000 tower was built, telecommunications companies would add their own equipment to it to eliminate local mobile phone black spots.
But they wanted to know why the company was not considering a number of other locations in the area they thought would be more suitable.
Cr Heit told the meeting she would ask representatives from tower constructors Daly International to attend a public meeting in the town in the near future to explain their position, and share information about the advantages and disadvantages of alternate site locations.
In the meantime, the meeting voted to lodge individual objections to the Swartz’s Road tower to formally register their disapproval of the site.
