The rapid growth in popularity of the mobile phone is hardly surprising, given that intense competition for customers between the different companies involved has brought the cost down substantially. There is much to be said in favour of these phones. They are very convenient, enabling people to stay in touch with each other wherever they happen to be. They are a useful aid to safety and security.

However, as with most developments there is another side to the story. Thoughtless use of mobile phones can prove very irritating to others. And some people object on aesthetic grounds to the masts necessary to provide the coverage the different networks need.

But it is something more serious than aesthetics which is causing concern at Otley. Residents living close to Wharfedale Farmers Auction Mart, where a new 15-metre mast was being erected this week, are worried that there could be harmful side-effects, particularly as far as young children are concerned.

Their anxieties are understandable and should not be dismissed lightly, given recent well-publicised claims that excessive users of mobile phones might suffer brain disease as a result of prolonged exposure to electronic microwaves.

At the very least the residents should be entitled to quiz representatives of One 2 One at their meeting on February 2 on any technical evidence there is about the effects or otherwise of microwaves. But for the longer term, measures need to be taken to regulate the spread of masts better and oblige networks to find ways of sharing rather than always erecting their own.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.