A new 15-metre communications mast can be put up in a prominent Hereford spot – despite drawing around 80 objections.

Cignal Infrastructure UK wanted to put the 5G mast and accompanying cabinets beside a footpath by the main A465 Belmont Road opposite The Oval to the southwest of the city.

Among many points raised against the plan were health and safety concerns from exposure to 5G signals, the visual intrusiveness and distraction of the mast, and 5G being “an unnecessary technology”.

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Sevdzhan Hayrula wrote: “This grassed site was to provide a pleasant outlook for residents, and the industrial-looking 15m installation will be nothing but an eyesore every time they look out of their windows, adding to their stress about the safety.”

Curiously, an almost identical application by the firm, for a 15m-high mast with cabinets but slightly further along the same path, was approved last summer with only three objections lodged.

An earlier, also slightly differently sited proposal had been approved in March last year, drawing ten objections.

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Planning officer Elsie Morgan said the latest change in position had “little bearing” on her assessment of the new application.

She acknowledged that the spot was “prominent, sitting along a main thoroughfare into and out of the city”, and that “the clutter associated with the mast and its cabinets would cumulatively cause some harm to visual amenity”.

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But there had been no objection from the council’s highways officer, and the installation would not obstruct the path, she said. And national planning policy favours permitting such infrastructure where it can be justified.

Given “the limited cell search area for 5G masts and the difficulty in finding less intrusive sites in this particular locality”, she considered the economic and social benefits of the proposal were “persuasive” – and the light grey colour of the units “acceptable”.

A proposed mast of the same size at the city's Rose & Crown pub, which drew a similar number of objections, was rejected  in February.