Councillor Ted Kemble remarked that 3G phone masts are liable to "protracted planning battles" (Letters, February 15).

Unfortunately, current planning guidelines don't recognise the adverse health effects of masts.

If planning committees vote against the masts, they risk having their decision overturned by Government inspectors, then paying thousands in costs.

The Government's £21 billion 3G licence fee from the telecoms industry - which included the obligation for 80 per cent coverage of the UK by 2007 - has locked the country into sustained electromagnetic exposure to people living near these high-strength masts.

Out of thousands of serious illnesses, www.mastsanity.org has details of 18 clusters, such as cancer, tumours, epilepsy and strokes, within several hundred metres of existing 2G masts.

The new 3G network requires up to 16 times more masts than the 2G system - one every 50 metres, according to some researchers. It will also need to be ten to 30 times more powerful and, unlike 2G, will transmit continuously.

Renowned physicist Dr John Walker recently said the "International Committee on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection made the biggest mistake in scientific history and unconsciously misled many ... by choosing guidelines 4.5 million times as high as those chosen by Salzburg yet phones still work in Salzburg."

Dr David Aldridge, a scientist who developed microwave technology for the US government, has said: "External mast signals swamp the body's natural internal signals. This can lead to cancers and a whole range of other serious medical disorders, particularly among children.

"Expose a cell to microwaves from a mast or phone and it interferes with its repair process. In the case of young children, the rate of cells dividing to form new ones is so fast, you end up with a vast number of mis-repairs."

-Graham Parfitt, Brighton