Culcheth and Glazebury are set for a long-awaited signal boost, and frankly, some of us may finally be able to send a text without performing the traditional village ritual of waving a phone at the kitchen window like we are summoning aircraft.
Warrington Borough Council has approved plans for a new 20-metre 5G mast in the car park of Partridge Lakes Fishery on Glaziers Lane. The mast will replace older telecommunications equipment that has been on the site in one form or another since 1998, with an update having taken place in 2009.
The new installation is being delivered by EE and is intended to improve both 4G and 5G coverage in the area. That should mean more reliable phone signal around Culcheth and Glazebury, which is welcome news for anyone who has ever had a call drop halfway through saying, "I can hear you now." Spoiler, we could not.
The approved setup includes six antennas and three telecommunications dishes, all housed within a two-metre fenced area in the fishery car park. So yes, it is a sizeable bit of kit, but it is not exactly being plonked in the middle of Culcheth village green wearing flashing lights and shouting about itself.
A total of 16 possible sites were considered before the Partridge Lakes location was chosen. These included areas at Leigh Golf Course and Culcheth Linear Park. Personally, keeping it away from the Linear Park feels like a sensible win. We have enough going on there without adding a mast into the mix like some sort of metallic woodland heron.
The developers described the mast as "critical infrastructure within the UK to support the local community in perpetuity", which is planning-speak for "people need their phones to work, and this is not going away." Dramatic? A bit. True? Also a bit.
Notably, no objections were received by the council. That is either a rare moment of local agreement or everyone was too busy trying to get signal to submit one. Either way, the lack of objections will have helped the plans move along without the usual planning drama.
Work is expected to begin in the coming weeks. The positive here is obvious: better connectivity for residents, businesses, visitors, and anyone relying on mobile data around Glaziers Lane and beyond. The criticism is equally fair: masts are not pretty, and nobody is pretending a 20-metre tower is going to win village beauty awards. But if it means fewer dead zones and fewer calls vanishing into the ether, Culcheth and Glazebury may decide this particular eyesore earns its keep.