A month after being ordered to remove a mast at the Alphen Hotel‚ the company has lost another court fight.
The Supreme Court of Appeal ruled that a 14.5-metre mast and base station was built illegally in 2014‚ and ordered MTN to start the planning application process again.
The multimillion-rand structure in Dalham Road‚ disguised as a tree‚ has enraged neighbours‚ who went to court saying it had been wrongly approved as a temporary building.
Judge Christiaan van der Merwe said the City of Cape Town “materially erred” in regarding the base station as a temporary building.
He dismissed MTN’s appeal against a finding of the High Court in Cape Town and ordered MTN to pay the costs of the Stemar Trust‚ which owns a neighbouring property.
MTN legal manager Fusi Mokoena said company lawyers were considering the judgment.
“These kind of cases are a normal feature for all network operators‚ and we now and then experience resistance by residents where we build new towers‚” he said.
“Unfortunately‚ there are instances where not everybody in a neighbourhood will be satisfied and where we will have cases like the current one.”
– TMG Digital/The Times
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