Residents and councillors are celebrating after plans for a controversial phone mast were turned down – despite officers' recommendations.
Derbyshire Dales planning officers wanted the application by Telefonica O2 UK for a 20-metre tower at Farley Hill in Matlock to be granted.
However, district councillors rejected the recommendations at a meeting on Tuesday and voted for refusal on
the grounds the mast would have a detrimental impact on the landscape.
After the meeting resident Richard Durran, who lives close to the proposed site at Mount Pleasant Farm, said: "I'm absolutely delighted.
"My faith in local government has taken a bit of a boost."
An application for a telecommunications tower for Mount Pleasant Farm was refused last year but two applications – for a mast a Bent Lane, Hackney and apparatus at Mount Pleasant Farm – have already been granted.
At the meeting resident Richard Whiteside, who lives at Farley Hill, appealed to councillors to refuse the plans on the same grounds as the application submitted last year.
He said: "Moving its position by nine metres will not render it any less hideous. I urge the planning committee to reject it."
Mr Durran added: "I ask councillors what it would be like for you to live in close proximity to three masts possibly four. I would compare it to living in a microwave oven."
Cllr Sue Burfoot said she felt strongly about the application, against officers recommendations.
She added: "There are two masts already. When is enough enough?
"Surely we have not always go to pander to the competitive nature of the telecommunications people. Two is quite enough. They are ugly and an eye sore."
Council leader Cllr Lewis Rose said he had sympathy for the planning officers who recommended approval for the masts on Government advice.
He added: "If it goes to appeal the Government will do what it has to do whether we like it or not."
Darley Dale Parish Council had objected to the plan suggesting that mobile phone companies shared masts in the area.
