Mobile phone mast fury

By Merill Haseen

A COUNCIL in England has started legal proceedings against Orange, because the mobile phone company refused to remove a mobile phone mast from the grounds of a school.

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Orange placed the mast there in 1997, on the understanding that it would be removed after three years if there was evidence of health risks.

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Now, however, Orange refuses to remove the mast.

Orange said that the mast is vital for its expanding business. A spokesman added: 'There is no conclusive evidence that makes a link between exposure to radio waves, transmitter masts and long-term public health risks. A typical Orange transmitter site operates at levels many hundreds of times below national and international guidelines in areas where the general public would have access.'

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Safety campaigners claim that telecom masts can cause children to suffer severe nose-bleeds, headaches and nausea, if they are constantly exposed to them at close range.

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Debbie Collins, of Mast Action UK, said: 'It is disgusting that Orange won't remove the mast when we are convinced it affects health. In my daughter's old school an alarmingly high number of children started getting seriously ill after a mast was installed. Some suffered from such severe nose-bleeds, they had to go to hospital.'

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A bid to restrict the spread of mobile phone masts goes before MPs later this month. Labour MP Debra Shipley has tabled a private Bill to ensure planning authorities take health risks into account when considering applications for sitings. Scottish ministers have already pledged legislation to include health as a factor in the planning process.

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In America, too, groups of concerned parents are campaigning to stop masts being erected near schools and houses. American public safety expert M Granger Morgan has coined the phrase 'prudent avoidance' it is only prudent, he argued, to avoid siting power lines and transmitters very near to where people congregate.

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Big companies are not happy about his statement, because going along with this precautionary avoidance could be seen as an admission of a risk. Then, when they are sued (as they inevitably would be in litigious America), it would be held against them that they knowingly indulged in risky behaviour.

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Phone facts

• The demand for mobiles means that the number of masts in the UK will increase from 22,000 to 50,000.
  
• In three years, the number of people in the country who own mobile phones has grown from nine million to nearly 35 million.
  
• More than one million mobile phones are sold every month.