Frigiliana Town Hall is negotiating an agreement with two phone-service providers, Vodafone and Orange, concerning a phone mast in the village.

As far as health concerns go, it couldn’t have been placed in a worse spot; i.e. right next to the municipal nursery and the health centre.

The mast has been in place since 1999 with a lease for 50 years granted by the then PA administration, but since then locals have filed many complaints, pointing out several cancer cases in that precise area of the municipality.

The Town Hall, which is run by the socialist PSOE party, pledged to have it removed but despite after four years of holding the Mayoralty, nothing has been done… or at least, seen to be done. Mayor Alejandro Herrero considers that the mast gives that area of town a Third World look and reassures residents that even though they have been working on the situation, it is going very slowly because of the difficulties involved.

The Town Hall has offered the said companies other locations on which to erect their mast but although this offer was received positively, nothing came of it.

The fact is that the companies pay the Town Hall 6,500 euros a year rent for the space that the mast occupies – the present administration considers this amount to be very small.

A motion was passed in a Plenary Meeting of the Town Council in April 2019 to have it removed or better said, moved. The administration was advised by their lawyers not to get entangled in a law suit but rather reach an amiable accord. The reason is, as most people are aware, that decades can pass before a final judicial decision is imposed… and they might not even win the case.

Editorial comment: officially you can’t erect such a mast within 500 metres of a built-up area but the PA administration claimed that they had a report from the Ministry of Industry which said that the emission levels were within those permitted.

One thing is for certain, the PA Mayor of the time would not have permitted the mast to be erected in his own garden… even for 6,500 euros a year.

On the other hand, readers might consider this a NAMBY reaction from the residents, who must depend on the mast to have mobile coverage. Yet the deciding factor is that it should never have been placed next to a public nursery school and municipal medical centre.

(News: Frigiliana, Axarquia, Costa del Sol, Malaga, Andalucia – Photo: E. Cabezas)