Plans for a mobile phone mast at a village cricket club ground have been turned down by Bexley Council.

But a ward councillor for Bexley Village, where the cricket club is based, warned that if the mobile phone company Orange is to make another application, it could be even more unacceptable.

Councillors heard the 20m high mast, at the cricket ground, would be on Green Belt land near the railway embankment by Bexley railway station.

The company said it had looked at three other sites in the village, but all of them had problems.

More than 100 people objected to the plan, including one of the ward councillors, MP Derek Conway and Old Bexley C of E Primary School.

Councillors heard the school was about 400m away from the proposed mast site and at that distance the emissions would be 21,000 times less than the Government guidelines. However, one of the school's governors, Paul Allen, a chartered engineer who used to work in telecommunications for BT, told councillors the possible risk to young children from a mast was unacceptable, because it was unquantifiable.

But ward councillor Colin Campbell said: "I find it difficult to understand why the school is objecting when it is 400m away. The danger is Orange could come back with an application next door to the school and we could get into an argument about which is the better site."

The application was refused. Also refused was a mast application from BT Cellnet for Landau Way on the Darent industrial estate, in Slade Green, because there was no information on how it might affect the flood barrier.

A One2One application for the junction of Bexley Road and Fraser Road, Erith, was approved.

November 19, 2001 11:30