Campaigners seek funding for Lewes 5G mast legal challenge

Through an online crowd-funding campaign, a group of Lewes residents are hoping to raise money to challenge a planning decision connected to an 18-metre-tall monopole mast in Nevill Road.

The mast itself has been in place since 2022, but only secured retrospective planning permission as a result of an appeal decision issued in July.

On a page hosted by Crowdjustice.com, the campaigners say they want to launch a statutory review of the decision.

In a press release issued last week, Viv Vignoles, who the crowdfunding website lists as the ‘case owner’, said: “It makes a mockery of local democracy that an unauthorised development can be refused retrospective planning permission by our elected councillors on Planning Applications Committee, dismissed at appeal, and then – instead of taking enforcement action as the council’s own policy dictates – local planning officials have seemingly decided to re-run the process.”

He added: “We are mounting a legal challenge to make sure that the law is applied properly. We are working with an amazing legal team, but we are relying on crowdfunding to cover the costs of this challenge.”

At time of publication, the campaign has raised £1,725 of its £2,000 target.

The website says this would cover the ‘initial costs’ of a legal challenge, which would be expected to include the provision of specialist legal advice and the “filing the formal court paperwork for the statutory review.”

The construction of telecommunications masts are typically covered by permitted development rights, meaning they can usually be installed without gaining planning permission as long as the developer informs the local authority of its plans.

But, in this case, the mast was built in the wrong place — several metres to the south of its intended location — and so required retrospective planning permission to remain in place.

The appeal scheme, approved in July, had been the second attempt by applicant Cignal Infrastructure UK Ltd to secure retrospective permission.

A previous attempt had been refused by Lewes District Council’s planning committee in October 2023 on the grounds it was “harmful to the landscape character of the area and detrimental to visual amenity.”

An appeal against this decision was dismissed in July 2024, despite the inspector not sharing the council’s concerns.

Instead, the 2024 dismissal was because of issues with the applicant’s International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) declaration — a document setting out how such developments comply with guidelines intended to protect human health.

The 2024 appeal inspector had described the overall document as “highly inadequate”, noting how it had listed the wrong company’s name and provided insufficient information about the specific mast and site.

But the inspector in the more recent appeal concluded these issues had been overcome by the submission of an updated ICNIRP declaration certificate.

The inspector wrote: “Given that I have a certificate to certify the development would meet the relevant technical standards, health considerations would not justify dismissing the appeal.”

The inspector also said they had not been “provided with substantive evidence that support the assertion that the nearby nursery and school would be adversely affected.”