letter in Hackney Gazette (August 2004)

Dear editor

The residents in the vicinity of the proposed mobile-phone mast in Shepherdess Walk and Sturt Street, Shoreditch, are to be congratulated for making a stand against T-mobile and Hackney Council.

It comes as no surprise that T-mobile is denying that mast radiation poses a risk to public health; and no surprise that Hackney Council is – once again – denying that it is guilty of poor administration. In both cases the script is only too predictable.

Incidentally, I would advise the residents in Shoreditch to ask Jules Pipe if he is prepared to intervene on their behalf. I recall that he pledged to stand shoulder to shoulder on the picket line with the residents of Hawksley Court when they physically blocked a phone company from erecting a mast on their estate two years ago. This was, of course, during his election campaign to become Hackney’s Labour mayor. Is he still prepared to man the barricades, I wonder?

Carl Taylor
Hackney Independent Working Class Association