Stunned Great Baddow residents are set to fight a planned trolley-mounted mobile phone base station mast on a sports field near homes and schools.

The application has been made by Orange after they were asked to cease using the premises of Great Baddow School for an antennae system set up in the early '90s.

The school asked for its removal after advice from Essex County Council which in 1999 voted through a policy opposing masts on any of its premises on the basis of as yet unproved health fears.

But Orange were left with a 'gap' in cover of their system of base stations in the Baddow area and have come to an arrangement with the Marconi Club to place a portable mast 15 metres (45 feet high) on their playing field.

The ground is used by West Ham United FC to train young people in soccer skills in the summer as well as for a host of other sporting activities by Marconi Club members and Baddow residents.

But families in the locality are rapidly raising a petition in the few days left to them to oppose the scheme.

And the head of Lark Rise Primary School, close to the beam range of the mast, has complained that her board of governors have been given no chance to discuss the matter because of the holidays.

The head of Baddow High School Mr Roger Hunton said the school had asked for its Orange mast to be removed on advice from the education authority and it had been taken down promptly by Orange, even although the contract period was not up.

Bio-electronics scientist Dr Gerard Hyland of Warwick University, one of the leading sceptics on the safety of radio frequency microwave radiation mobile phone masts, says they should be sited a minimum of 1,500 feet from any residence, school, hospital or old people's home.

Campaign coordinator at Baddow Mrs Wendy Squirrell says it appears the mast will be within tens of feet of new houses at Apple Way and about 60 metres from her three under-teenage children's bedrooms.

"We have seen campaigns all over the country and the government issuing precautionary statements that there is no proof one way or another yet whether such masts could harm health. We agree with the precautionary approach taken elsewhere," said Mrs Squirrell.

A council spokesman said the mast would be viewed on its merits and if councillors objected then those objections could only be on location and siting.

Cllr Christine Rycroft said: "We always hear there is no evidence of any harm from these masts but my view is that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.