The council's Planning Department is currently dealing with an application for another mobile phone mast in our area, this time on Partridge Road. The deadline for comments was last Friday, 24 June, but I've been assured that it's still possible for residents to submit their views to the council's Planning Department for another week and have them taken into account.

The council can't reject mast applications on health grounds, but is increasingly refusing them on grounds of visual appearance and the increasing 'clutter' on our streets. However, more and more applicants are going to appeal, where the council's refusal is usually overturned. (This has just happened further down Southern Way, towards Bush Fair).

The way in which the expansion of the mobile phone industry is being dealt with across the country really is unsatisfactory - for applicants, for local councils, and most importantly for residents. Mobile phone handsets themselves give out far stronger emissions than the masts do, but as long as phone operators fail to engage the public in proper, open debate about the siting of masts, residents will continue to feel suspicious.

Mobile phone operators need to be much more open with residents about their plans, and the reasons for them; they need to co-operate more, to reduce the numbers of single-supplier masts springing up everywhere; and they should be required to submit proper planning applications for all masts, not just those over 15 metres.