Cellphone site desires await clarification

Vodafone has renewed interest in a new cellphone site in north Nelson it earmarked five years ago, to expand its new mobile broadband technology.

The company has applied to the city council as landowner, to seek resource consent to set up a new telecommunications site at the seaward end of Boulder Bank Drive, near the waste-water treatment plant.

It wants to provide the new-era 3G technology coverage to Atawhai, and is seeking an eight-metre by four-metre footprint area on which to establish a mast, on which panel and dish antennae would be attached. Three associated equipment cabinets are planned for the site.

Vodafone also plans to build a new site in Stoke, near the junction of Bail St and Songer St on Main Rd Stoke, city councillors heard at a recent meeting. The company applied to the council to establish a new cellphone site at the location in 2004, when the council agreed to the idea, subject to Vodafone gaining resource consent and agreeing to various conditions.

A similar recommendation from a recent infrastructure committee meeting was turned down. Council staff were asked to produce a "more holistic" approach to the supply of telecommunications transmitters. This was partly driven by the lack of resolution over Telecom's desire for a cellphone tower in Atawhai for Dodson Valley.

Strong public opposition last year to Telecom's controversial cellphone tower proposal for Atawhai was partly the reason it put on hold its plans to build new cellphone towers in Nelson until at least this year.

Cr Rachel Reese, at a recent infrastructure committee meeting, said the council ought to wait until each telecommunications company identified specific technical needs and sites before agreeing to land use.

Cr Ali Boswijk said the council needed to show that it wanted firms to be able to do business in Nelson, but in a way that did not undermine communities, particularly with the concerns expressed by the public over cellphone towers.

The council's business assets adviser, Ian Morrison, said the council needed to "facilitate co-operation rather than competition".

He later told The Nelson Mail that the two companies shared a code which allowed them to share sites around the country.

Telecom spokesman Ian Bonnar said yesterday that the company was in the early stages of investigating a couple of alternative sites on council land in Atawhai. Telecom was now seeking permission from the council to present these options to the Atawhai community.

"There is a long way to go before any decisions are made, but we remain hopeful of reaching a solution that meets everyone's needs," Mr Bonnar said.

The council will discuss the recommendation around Vodafone's request at a full council meeting on Thursday.

- © Fairfax NZ News