Cheltenham Council and telecoms providers have jointly been forced by popular outrage to relinquish the site of a planned 5G mast, 23/00551/PRIOR, Lansdown Road, Cheltenham. After a long delay, they were unable to provide evidence of compliant exclusion zones, to protect humans from the effects of EMF on metallic implants, and hence withdrew.
Tracey Birkinshaw, Director of Planning & Building Control at Cheltenham Borough Council wrote to campaigner Steven Thomas on 9th December 2025 to confirm that CK Hutchinson Networks, (formerly three) ‘the client’, would not be going forward with the mast, as stated by Mr Josh Fiteni, of Telecoms agency Clarke Telecom Ltd.
So yet another mast application has been quietly withdrawn, this time following the leadership example of three campaigners, Steven Thomas, Neil McDougall and Karen Churchill, after a long battle. These hearty individuals have shown extraordinary fortitude in the art of never giving up, in a story with more twists and turns than a pantomime, and just as much artfulness, on the part of the authorities.
It’s a topsy turvy Yuletide winter’s tale of machinations, deflection, obfuscation and obstruction., and that’s just the judges, arf arf, honestly it’s very moving, so pull up a mince pie, chomp on a sofa and let’s go.
The withdrawal of this mast was certainly not easy or straightforward, it marks the end of a saga of 3 long years of legal action and campaigning. We don’t need to go into the labyrinthine detail here, to know that it is entirely down to the absolute determination and grit of Neil, Karen and Steven, that they just did not give up, not at minor setbacks that would have defeated many, and not when all seemed lost, and not even when handed a sop by a judge who ruled in their favour, but did not enforce the exclusion zones. (ANM has included a chronology of the case below – thank you to the campaigners.)
But their victory extends beyond that disappointment because the refusal to give up and the surrendering of the site, provides all of us with the blueprint of how to move forward.
Steven’s reaction to being refused hearing by the Supreme Court was to feel righteous anger at the obvious injustice of that and consequent harm to humans and manifestation. His response was to educate about that.
When we look at it, the essential difference is honesty and a willingness to act.
What these guys have done is nothing short of miraculous. Anyone who has been to court knows how stressful it is, as ANM does. What these three very different people have achieved in persevering in working together through that is nothing short of overcoming divide and rule.
And that’s what we’ve all got to do isn’t it, not micro managing one another, but allowing and encouraging each to play to their strengths and being fastidious about attribution.
“While the High Court appeal judge (HHJ Jarman in May 24) found in their favour, acknowledging the science that metal implants could cause harm in the presence of EMF, this same poor fellow then apparently flipped 180 degrees in his own head and was unable to justify honouring the obvious exclusion zone, where some residents were as little at 17 metres away from the top of the mast. (We admittedly don’t know exactly how far over the parapet the judge’s head was already.)
Regardless, what is communicated is that the most important thing is not to supply the precedent.
Perhaps that’s why, even though the mast was still going ahead, Cheltenham Borough Council actually went and appealed the findings , thus clearly showing their knicker elastic: posh elastic at that, as they blew nearly £100K of resident’s money losing that appeal.
And the mast was still not cancelled, so the intrepid trio went to the Supreme Court in 2025 and, garnering themselves once again, even though most people would probably not have been able to stand one another by then, they put in another mammoth application, which the Supreme Court refused to hear.
This is when things got real for residents in and around Cheltenham, when Steven Thomas was moved by this dereliction of public duty, to leaflet the community widely showing how the genuine exclusion zone regulations and guidance were being ignored, putting people directly in harms way.
The Council received many contacts from angry residents, so they tried to deflect back to ‘only an agent’ Clarke Telecom (“Boooooo”) who had falsely declared at the time that the site was fully ICNIRP compliant in a “clarifying” statement (“Booooooo”) following having being found out about the dodgy three ICNIRP certificate in the first place. (“Booooo”)
Keeping up? Have another glass!
But now when re-asked by an affected resident (a potential material planning consideration) for actual compliant exclusion zone maps… it was….. crickets.
Nothing will cause uncomfortable silence like being caught in a lie. The discomfort and level of intrigue is evident in the correspondence, where it’s obvious the ‘delay’ has been about arguing in the background.
No-one wants the hot potato, especially not poor old Josh, who forlornly protested to an affected member of the public that he’s ‘only an agent’. Everyone immediately turns victim, and even though you’ve only got three to ring, don’t expect anyone to be there.
The Supreme Court’s unreasonable refusal to ‘grant relief’ on the back of the High Court, (too bawdy?) has backfired because of Steven’s honest response to it, a response which is simply logical and what all councils should be doing as ‘Competent Authorities’: informing residents of these regulations and asking about ‘material planning considerations’, i.e. personal circumstances, that they can’t find out about any other way.
They couldn’t go forward with the mast because it’s not compliant, and neither are so many others, so it looks as if the Council, the agent and the client were at fault.
It’s the same old panto, at one end councils rely on a lack of legal precedent, and at the other, they’re running around spending our money trying to make sure ‘oh no you don’t’ have one. Much better for a mast to disappear in a puff of purple smoke – “now you see it, now you don’t“. All that matters is that we don’t have precedent.
Swansea Planning Bros won’t obey rules until some Widow Twanky in parliament says so either: no precedent, no listen.
Of course EMF being invisible, as with certain other weapons, affords it plausible deniability which history shows can be banked on for a time but in the end even that runs out. We may not be able to see the EMF, (you can with a meter) but we can see the puppets dancing to cover it up, and the invisibility cloak is losing its spell.
Of course with the galloping advance of the surveillance state the situation is different from former the one facing former tobacco campaigners for example, but individuals like Neil, Karen and Steven remind us that we are still the same. Humanness doesn’t give up easy.
And that’s good because we appear to be in an equation of Totalism, vs Time where all that has to happen is for precedent to be denied long enough for the control grid to be fastened down and then precedent won’t matter.
So it’s great that it ‘didn’t matter’ this time. And if judges aren’t going to be very balanced, in pitting health against the surveillance grid, then precedent could easily lose its cachet all together.
On past form it’s doubtful that Swansea Planning Bros will be impressed by the foresight and realism of Castle Point Borough Council, for example, whose plan now includes points on this on pages 154 and 155, including:
19.73 the case of Thomas V Cheltenham borough Council indicate where the public raised issues with regard to the impact of the EMF on medical devices this should be taken into account in the decision-making process. A risk assessment addressing any concerns raised during public consultation should therefore be prepared to company any application.
Swansea campaigners are certain not to give up though and these types of statement are nothing less than a clear mandate for everyone to get involved. All Councils now need to be fessing up to this and moving on it without further negligent delay. The jig is up, the game is seen, we know who dunnit, who is doing it, and who will do anything but surrender the precedent that changes the game.
But hey, it’s Christmas so we can enjoy old favourites, and relish the win. We can all talk to our councils now or in the new year and if you listen, you can hear nibs being sharpened already.
These campaigners’ responses and actions operate on our natural frequencies, responding honestly and acting on truth, looking deeply into things that are hard to understand, but that matter very much, and seeking to do very difficult work harmoniously together, all of which this trio has activated.
As well as the victory itself, we must take from the stalwart fight of these wonderful human beings, Karen Churchill, Steven Thomas and Neil McDougall, the welcome knowledge that as well as dodgy frequencies, people are very obviously sick and tired of relying on the corrupt.
So in wishing you all the very best of the season and wonderful miracles in 2026, we may as well include those good eggs in the judiciary that actually value honesty, scientific rigour and human and environmental health, and who therefore must admire the legendary determination of Brits.
Let’s invite them, in fact, to step outside under the stars with their snifter this Christmas, raise a toast with us, to three bright campaigners willing to pay the price of leadership, and feel which way the wind is blowing, (behind you).
For current in-depth information on the difficulties of enforcing protective decision making, see RF-Info’s legal updates page.
Photograph of Cheltenham Town Hall in lead photo from Cheltenham Borough Council publications with thanks.
Below is a link to IGNORE ICNIRP, ANM’s acclaimed short explainer.
Able News Media, ANM, Cheltenham Borough Council, Karen Churchill, Neil McDougall, Steven Thomas
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