ANM would like to pay our respects to the late Wendy Fitzgerald who we first met when she spoke in the council chamber against the unfettered nuisance of 5G technology littering our towns, cities and countryside, which continues apace.
The love for Wendy in her many roles as a public representative over 25 years, has been clearly visible in the hundreds of cards of gratitude her family has received.
Deputy Lord Mayor Wendy Fitzgerald’s list of achievements is both long and transparently grounded in community life and work. As a teacher she set up her own language school, and was Governor of both Penllergaer Primary and Pontardulais Comprehensive.
After being a community councillor Wendy stood for Penllergaer ward in council elections in 2004 as an independent and has faced many challenges coming from the many building projects in the area including the accompanying blanket of frequency emissions. She was also on the Board of the Penllergaer Trust, as well as being a founder member of both the Ladies’ Guild, Penllergaer Crafters and a successful Gardening Club. Wendy would have become Lord Mayor next year and it is to all of our loss that she now will not be.
Without wishing to mar these respects it is nevertheless necessary to draw attention to the fact that since her death, a non-compliant 5G mast has been suddenly erected very close to hers and other houses.
We would like to thank Wendy for being a genuine voice in the council for the health of the people of Swansea, in so many respects over many years and in becoming informed and resisting the dangerous, profligate and untested use of electro-magnetic frequencies in civilian communications and life with the introduction of 5G.
With customary humour and determination, Wendy faced down ridicule from ignorant members, those who loved passing the buck upwards, and still do despite clear instructions from higher ups that councillors themselves, as being the individuals comprising the legal status of ‘Competent Authority’, are the ones who have to understand the dangers of the technology they foist upon those they are supposed to represent: people, animals, plants, and the whole environment.
They, as a council and as individuals, are the buck-stop.
After last summer’s absolute farce of a ‘consultation’ regarding two 5G masts to be put right in the centre of the Singleton campus for the technocratic ‘5G living lab’, ordinary people would be forgiven for thinking that the legal landscape on frequency omissions has not changed, and that there are no added regulations for greedy telecoms and councils to heed. When Swansea Council is so willing to employ dishonesty in order to fend off public concern, who could blame them?
But the field has changed in several important ways, for example:
Competent Authorities : Buck-passing on the basis of ‘We’re not experts so the government will tell us whether it’s safe’ is officially no longer lawful. The UK government is merely the next layer of gate-keeping and, in its turn, tries to shunt the health and environmental effects off to the handy private gate-keeping quango in the form of ICNIRP, which Wendy herself called out heroically in the council chamber. But ICNIRP says no, they don’t cover those health effects.
It is concerning that the Council, now aware of its status as safety watchdog, continues to perform all this public nuisance jiggery pokery in plain sight.
Exclusion Zones: it is now formalised that mast planning and siting must factor in exclusion zones, for example, for metal implants, including hearing aids and the like. ICNIRP states these public health issues are out out of its purview and this gap puts clear responsibility for this public health element squarely on councils as the competent authority. ICNIRP certification is no longer a fig-leaf for these legally recognised dangers.
The ones on the university certainly breach the law in this respect, but, hey, money.
This new mast, as well as being ridiculously close to a dozen or so houses is actually of particular statutory nuisance to Wendy Fitzgerald’s own daughter who is electro-sensitive. She will now be forced out of her childhood home which is 500m away from the sudden mast and will be unable to care for her bereaved father.
Buckets of Precedents : The council has been made fully aware of all the emerging precedents forged by ordinary people to actually fight their own councils to get recognition of obvious and evidenced effects of these masts, which are routinely located near schools.
These inversions of public duty, and our tolerance of it, are why the sudden appearance of a non compliant mast less than 500m from the late Wendy Fitzgerald’s house, immediately after her death, which should raise general concern, disgust and very possibly suspicion, somehow doesn’t.
Neither was the blatant date-fudging of last year’s ‘consultation’ re Singleton ever acknowledged by those who deployed and then weaponised the ruse. Dates, facts and evidence don’t matter, so why should the death of a true champion of the people get in the way? Why on earth didn’t they put the mast up while Wendy was still alive? She could have fought it from her death bed.
Wendy’s daughter wrote urgently to Phil Holmes, Head of Planning and City Regeneration, expressing serious concerns about the mast but the legitimacy of those evidenced concerns have been brushed aside.
Shouldn’t Phil Holmes be ashamed, as well as all other nodding, buck-passing councillors and council officials, to turn up to Wendy’s memorial service, scraping and mawing, faking respect, while having knowingly allowed this vengeful flex, before Wendy Fitzgerald had even been buried?
Transparent racketeering will never stand opposition and always behaves unlawfully in plain sight.
All of which demonstrates emphatically that Wendy, whose ear was always close to the ground in her beloved community, was very much a cut above the rest, and is still having to work for her constituents, even here in her own tribute.
Thank you Wendy, you were a true servant of the people and you will be sorely missed.
We encourage you to watch the video of Wendy in action on 5G from 2019….
Able News Media, ANM, Councillor Wendy Fitzgerald, ICNIRP, Phil Holmes Head of Planning and City Regeneration, Swansea 5G Living Lab, Swansea Council
A fitting tribute to Councillor Wendy Fitzgerald, who remains the only councillor to date who has actively challenged Swansea Council and its policies and on the harmful effects of 5G and wireless technology.
The Council may have said “I think it is right to be cautious”, but fast forward five and a half years and it has been anything but.
The Council may have said “I think it is right to take on all the information and advice [and] we are not ignoring the comments and the claims that are being made”, but it has repeatedly ignored health concerns expressed by residents; and has ignored numerous peer-reviewed scientific studies showing evidence of harm – contrary to the Council’s legal obligations as a competent authority to reconcile environmental and public health considerations.
The Council may have said “I’m sure six months, twelve months from now there will be better and more information to help us understand the implications and what consequences there are going to be”. There are. Approximately 90% of the hundreds of scientific studies undertaken to date have found overwhelming evidence of harm at exposure levels well below those set by the ICNIRP for thermal effects, but the Council has ignored them. The Council has similarly ignored the ICNIRP’s own declared exclusions in public health protection in the ICNIRP guidelines; has ignored legal non-conformities in planning documentation; has ignored a recent legal ruling that an ICNIRP Declaration of Conformity was insufficiently protective for those with metallic implants (Steven Thomas v Cheltenham Borough Council, 2024); has ignored Freedom of Information requests; and has ignored the actions taken by other more cautious Authorities who have ‘taken on all the information and advice’ and concluded “there is not enough evidence of safety to proceed”.
It must be noted that planning policy is only guidance and cannot replace or undermine UK Law. The Council should be challenging the fact that planning policy wrongly dictates that only the ICNIRP guidelines can be considered in isolation and should be challenging the fact that planning policy wrongly dictates that only siting and appearance can be considered.
Thank you ANM for making this footage available.