News Burst: Mobile mast ban expected Monday

Kent County Council is expected on Monday to agree a complete ban on mobile phone masts on its land. The unprecedented move comes in response to last year's Stewart Report into mobile phones and health.

The council's stance is part of a wider plan aimed to protect residents from the potentially harmful effects of mobile phone radiation -- including a policy of refusing any application from a mobile phone company to "erect a mast on land or property owned or occupied by the council".

Deputy council leader Keith Ferrin said that the independent report had added to the concerns of local residents. "There are very real fears in Kent about the safety of mobile phone masts, backed up by the precautionary recommendations of the Stewart Report," he explained last week.

Speaking last Wednesday, council leader Sandy Bruce-Lockhart insisted that the government should be doing more. "The government should hurry up. We expected swift action after publication of the report but nothing has happened. Ministers have been unfeasibly slow," he said, according to the Daily Telegraph.

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