Walk down a busy high street and count the mobile phones and internet hot spots. Four years ago, there were 5m mobile phones in the UK; today, there are more than 50m. That adds up to a tidal wave of radio traffic. We all want to stay in touch, but the price of taking calls is becoming too high for many. Health and environmental concerns have sparked a war of words between campaigners and an industry that profits every time you tell your loved ones you are on a train.

Mobile-phone masts and base stations are springing up like virulent fungi — 50,000 of the eyesores will be dotted round Britain by 2007. Although nobody should underplay the benefits of the cordless revolution, the question remains: how safe is wireless technology? Here, the jury is out. On the one hand are the anti-mast campaigners who are convinced that radio frequency (RF) radiation from transmitters can pose a serious threat; they want to see new masts sited away from schools, hospitals and houses.

Lisa Oldham, director and founder of Mast Sanity (www.mastsanity.org), one of the UK’s largest groups campaigning against mobile-phone masts, says: “We’ve found all sorts of cancer clusters around masts — leukaemia, Hodgkin’s, breast cancer — as well as reports of dizziness, headaches and nosebleeds. The scientists say there is no conclusive evidence, but there is no such thing as conclusive evidence. What did they used to say about asbestos, or smoking?”

The communications industry, on the other hand, is desperate to dismiss such health fears as irrational, scaremongering nonsense. It simply cannot afford bad news after it paid the government an unprecedented £22.5 billion on licences for the third-generation (3G) spectrum. Forecasts see the UK mobile-phone market doubling between 2003 and 2007, from £864m to £1.6 billion. Health scares would be distinctly bad for business.

A recent study in the Netherlands, by the reputable Organisation for Applied Scientific Research, suggested a correlation between masts, 3G signals and poor health, although no ill effects were observed on older GSM networks. However, one report makes little impact on the debate, and government experts remain unsure of the potential risks.

In January this year, the UK’s Advisory Group on Non-Ionising Radiation, working under the National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB, www.nrpb.org), produced an update to the government-backed Stewart report on mobiles in 2000. The update, Health Effects from Radio Frequency Electromagnetic Fields, concluded that much of the research so far had been inadequate both in scope and methodology.

It stated: “The weight of evidence now available does not suggest that there are adverse health effects from exposure to RF fields below guideline levels, but the published research on RF exposures and health has limitations, and mobile phones have been in use for only a relatively short time. The possibility therefore remains open that there could be health effects from exposure to RF fields below guideline SAR (specific absorption rate) levels.”

Put simply: we don’t know how safe phone masts are. Some scientists claim there is far too much room for the industry to pull the wool over consumers’ eyes. Don Maisch, an Australian researcher in electromagnetic fields, believes the communications industry glosses over potentially adverse health effects, reporting research selectively and restricting funding in case the results prove commercially damaging. “The cellphone industry has learnt from the tobacco wars that if you want to put off the day of judgment, you have to control the science,” he says.

The issue that angers campaigners most is the ease with which service providers are able to site masts, with little or no planning permission, and often close to schools. The Mobile Operators Association (MOA), which represents the mobile-network operators, says that for masts under 15 metres — the height of a five-storey building — they have only to submit a notification to the local authority. Unless they hear objections, they can then go ahead. For masts above 15 metres, full planning permission has to be obtained.

Even so, telecoms operators are virtually unstoppable. Local councils’ hands were tied by the Labour government when it granted operators legal rights to use public-highway land for telecoms development. The government’s 2001 guidance to councils states: “The planning system is not the place for determining health safeguards. If a proposed development meets the International Commission on Non-Ionising Radiation Protection guidelines for public exposure, it should not be necessary for a local planning authority to consider further the health aspects and concerns about them.” Final decisions are therefore made by laymen in local government, who have been told to ignore the scientific issues.

Paul Miner, of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, has called for far tighter controls: “Mobile operators continue to be able to put up many new masts without having to apply for planning permission. This means that locals and the council might object to an inappropriate mast proposal, but the mast will go up regardless.”

Many communities, especially those near schools, feel powerless to stop the march of the masts. “We are swamped with people protesting and worrying about the effects on children,” Lisa Oldham says. “There are hundreds of groups around the country trying to stop new masts being erected and get existing masts taken down.”

The campaigners, however, face a stony-faced industry with the law on its side. The MOA said: “There is no policy regarding the siting of masts near schools, other than the requirement to consult with them. But the consultee has no right of veto.”

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