Backflip after tower knock-back that would have left Palmerston a mobile black spot

The Development Consent Authority has backflipped on a decision to knock back plans for a Telstra tower that would have plunged a Top End area into a mobile phone service black hole.

THE Development Consent Authority (DCA) has backflipped on a decision to knock back plans for a Telstra tower that would have plunged Palmerston into a mobile phone service black hole.

Telstra took the DCA to the NT Civil and Administrative Tribunal seeking an order overturning the decision only for the authority to backtrack on the day of the hearing and agree to approve the plans.

The tribunal heard Telstra applied to build the new tower in August last year after Power and Water directed all telcos to remove their old towers from on top of an existing water tower.

Tribunal member Ben O’Loughlin said the proposal was for “a typical mobile phone tower, being a monopole with an antennae, situated next to the loading bay areas of Coles and Target”.

“Unless a new location was found, the people of Palmerston would soon be without mobile coverage,” he said.

Despite the application being recommended for approval, the DCA refused to consent to it, saying the tower “would have an adverse impact on amenity, primarily because of its height and industrial appearance”.

But in his ruling, delivered at the request of the parties, Mr O’Loughlin said the Planning Scheme recognised that telecommunications facilities were “necessary” and would “invariably have some degree of adverse impact on amenity”.

“The clause does not require telecommunications facilities to have no impact on amenity, presumably because it is accepted that by their nature they are likely to be tall and unattractive,” he said.

“The clause only requires that the effect on amenity is minimised so that there isn’t any unreasonable amenity impact.”

Mr O’Loughlin found the DCA failed to consider evidence that knocking back the plans would mean Palmerston residents would lose mobile phone coverage without the new tower.

“Criticisms of the height of a tower is unusual, if not unfair, particularly where the evidence was that ‘clear line of sight is integral to the functioning of any telecommunications facility,” he said. “In a built-up area with tall buildings, height is the only solution for a communications tower.

“It would also be hard to avoid a telecommunications pole having an ‘industrial appearance’. Perhaps it could be decorated or disguised by some architectural flourishes (but any such attempt would probably merely aggravate the impact on amenity).”