In another urban development bungle, Liverpool Council approved a housing development too close to the ABC’s Sydney AM radio transmisison towers.

In an ongoing story about transmission towers, the Sydney Morning Herald today revealed that residents in the new housing estate of Prestons had been experiencing interference from the ABC 702 signal since moving into the area more than a year ago.

The issue became public last week when a development in Homebush was found to be too close to several commercial radio Transmission sites. In this newest revelation there is an additional complicating factor – the ABC does not own or manage its own transmission sites, that is taken care of by a separate transmission company, which was originally owned by the government, then sold to ntl and was recently bought by Macquarie Investments.

Because of the high land value in Sydney and the push by local councils for maximum development, there is sure to be more on this issue. Sydney’s television towers for instance are all in highly built up urban areas.

This issue of development around transmission sites is not such a problem in other cities, where the topography is different from Sydney, and most transmission towers were originally built on hills far from the urban area. Sydney’s sprawling growth and spiralling land values have precipitated this situation, with uninformed local planning bodies and councils being a contributing factor.

Until now local and state planning bodies have not taken much notice of the issue of transmission radiation and interference when allowing new development, but this is bound to change. The can of worms is now open and it is likely to affect more than just radio transmission towers as the issue gathers momentum.