ANDOVER mast protester Jennifer Johnson has called for a national independent investigation following news that residents in both Andover and Southamp-ton have fallen victim of the planning notification over-run rule.

In both cases telecommunications companies won permission by default - after planners rejected their application - because they received the refusal notice one day after the legal time limit of 56 days.

In Andover Orange won the right for a mast at Balksbury Hill because they received the refusal notice on the 57th day.

Mrs Johnson said: "Andover and Southampton are just two in a long list of victims of the infamous prior notification over-run.

"The same thing is going on right across the country." Now she says there should be an independent inquiry conducted at national level to investigate these cases.

She added: "As the health fears mount and the operators find it harder and harder to get masts built without widespread protest, this legal loophole offers a way out of a very tricky situation.

"They get the right to build without the inconvenience and uncertainty of having to go through the appeal process, and all the campaigns and public outrage cannot stop them."

Mrs Johnson maintains councils should be in no doubt that people will not tolerate having their 'democratic and human rights denied, their homes devalued, their health put at risk, and their jobs and places of work jeopardized'.