TETRA :: Ecologist - October 2004
By Jay Griffiths
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Before the TETRA mast was erected in Llanidloes, the nearest thing to a health scare was that the local Kwik-Save was no longer selling prunes in apple juice.
Llanidloes is a small, open-hearted market town in a damp and lovely valley in mid-Wales. It is a town with a strong identity and long memory; some people still live in the street where they were born. Solidly Welsh, and surrounded by farmland, Llanidloes also has a smattering of English blow-ins; into organic veg and eco-design and jazz. They chirpily co-exist with no more than the odd grumble from locals about the "hippy contingent".
And then, stealthily, on a bank holiday weekend in May, the company 02 (through its subsidiary MM02) erected a TETRA mast in the heart of town. 02's idea of "consultation" was legal but risible; barely more than informing the mayor and town council that they were imposing the mast in town, whether Llanidloes liked it or not.
And Llanidloes did not.
There was an outcry. Posters were put up in windows, a march held, banners made. (One flew from the top of the mast itself.) Llanidloes became part of what the Times has called a "popular revolt" against TETRA.
The town felt bullied by a giant of a company. For many, it's an issue of local democracy; a town should have the right to refuse. But,
comments the stalwart and thoughtful Councillor Morgan, in Llanidloes we have a history of David beating Goliath.
And, someone tells me, we had a Chartist riot right here in Great Oak Street
.
And then people began informing themselves. What Llanidloes discovered - like hundreds of communities around the country - is the staggering story of TETRA. A story which involves science being "perverted for political ends" a police officer dying in agony; one of the country's leading scientists in an extraordinary volte face; a company which openly confesses to taking no responsibility for the safety of what they produce; a whistleblower; a financial scandal, a political scandal and a health scandal above all.
It involves you directly if you live near a TETRA mast. And considering that at least 3,200 such masts will be erected in the UK, there will be one near you.
