COUNCILLORS have taken to task a communications firm who failed to spot the location of a Crewe school close to a planned 5G mast.

A document supporting Three's planning application to install the mast by a pavement on Coppenhall Lane, on the opposite side of its junction with Sunnybank Road, claims there is no school or college close to the proposed site.

But the Axis Academy, Cheshire East's Special Educational Needs school, opened its doors to its first pupils in a new building on the site of the former Lodgefields Primary School in February, about one third of a mile away.

Lodgefields was demolished in 2007 and the site has lain empty until building work on the new school started before the pandemic.

Crewe town councillor John Rhodes told the authority's planning committee: "Maybe I'm being generous and they [Three] have looked at google maps and saw there's nothing on it [the site]. But we know the Axis Academy has opened and it's literally 350 metres from that particular mast.

"There's also a playground and skate/BMX facility too."

The comms firm says the 20-metre high mast will help improve connectivity in Crewe, in particular assisting with the rise of home working.

It said in its planning statement: "In these unprecedented times of the Covid-19 pandemic it is recognised that high-speed mobile connectivity is the lifeblood of a community."

But Crewe town councillors voted to object to the plan - which will be determined by Cheshire East planning officials under delegated powers - on the grounds of "the inaccuracy" in the planning document and their view that it will present an obstruction to pedestrians.