Residents across the district have been writing letters and signing petitions to stop masts being built near their homes and schools in recent years

Overwhelmingly the main concern is the possible health implications for those living close to a mast.

The Stewart Report, which came out in 2000, was the work of the Independent Expert Group on Mobile Phones. The group looked specifically at the effects of mobile phone masts on the population and urged a precautionary approach to the use of mobile phone technology, suggesting more research into the potential health effects.

Earlier this year Laura Barraclough, of Tannerbrook Close in Clayton, battled against mobile phone giant Vodafone to stop a mast being put up near her home because of her concerns about the effects on health.

The proposed site was behind neighbouring Paradise Shopping Centre in Pasture Lane, making it just ten metres from the nearest home and some 200 metres away from the local school.

Mrs Barraclough said: "There are quite a few children on our street and a lady had just given birth the week we got the letters through the door."

One of the main problems Mrs Barraclough faced was that her concerns over health could not be considered by the planning committee. The application was refused but Mrs Barraclough told the Telegraph & Argus she would have considered moving if the mast had gone up, although it might have devalued her property.

She was helped in her campaign by Mast Sanity, a national organisation which helps campaigners stop masts being erected.

Ingrid Dickenson, director of scientific studies for Mast Sanity, explained that she first became concerned about the health effects of mobile phone masts when her son's health started to deteriorate in 1995. She soon learned that the school housed a mast and begun to think the two were related.

"It was horrendous. He would come home with terrible nose bleeds and headaches," she said.

Mrs Dickenson began to look at research done by European scientists and discovered that exposure to low level pulses emitted from the masts weakened the immune system, so she took her son out of that school and sent him to another one and almost immediately his health improved.

For the past 11 years Mrs Dickinson has devoted her time to finding out more about the health implications of mobile phone masts. She explained that scientists in Germany, Sweden and Norway were continually pushing for their governments to put an end to rapid roll out of masts. One particular study on the town of Naila in Germany showed that the cancer rate for residents living near to mobile phone masts was up 300 per cent.

"People who already have a weak immune system and the weaker members of the community are much more likely to be affected," said Mrs Dickinson.

She says the Government needs to look at the cumulative effect of masts in a small area, rather than looking at individual masts.

This week campaigners in Otley were able to stop a 15-metre high mast being built within the town's Green Belt. Ward councillors had feared it might be difficult to stop Orange PCS Ltd's proposal for a field off St David's Road, despite widespread opposition from residents in the area. But Leeds City Council planning officers agreed that the telecommunications mast would have been too visible on that site.

Councillor Colin Campbell (Lib-Dem, Otley and Yeadon) said: "It was certainly one of the things I've had most letters about this year."

Mast Sanity is pushing for people to be able to find out more easily exactly where masts are located. At the moment the only way of finding out is to use Ofcom's sitefinder facility.

However the main complaint about this database is that it is not kept up-to-date.

In contrast Chris Morley, church warden at St Barnabas Church in Heaton, battled against a group, Heaton Against Radiation Mast, which objected to a proposal to put up a phone mast on the church.

He said people were concerned about the prospect of radiation from mobile phone masts despite the fact that digital television emits a similar type of radiation, as do radars at airports.

After looking into the subject, Mr Morley discovered that humans are capable of taking in radiation which would heat us up by one degree without any problems.

"The international standard for masts is just one-tenth of that level of radiation and mobile phone masts are at most one-hundredth of the radiation that we can cope with quite comfortably," he said.

As the mobile phone industry expands, there will continue to be a need for more masts to provide these services. But until definitive research is able to say whether mobile phone masts have a detrimental affect on the health of the population campaigners will continue their battles.

l For further information go to: Ofcom website at www.ofcom.org.uk; Mast Sanity website at www.mastsanity.org