I don't like being dogmatic about these things. Like any sensible engineer (I'm not a sensible engineer!) I feel diffident about saying: "Look, there's no way this can cause harm!"

But the mast hysteria developing about mobile phone masts means that even people like me (and you?) will now be asking: "Should I allow planning permission if asked?"

And the answer, definitely, is: "No! - my house will drop in value by a quarter to a third!" - not for any known rational reason; just because other people will think "His house will drop in value by a quarter to a third." And if they all do, it will.

Is there a way around this problem?

Threatening to burn a church down shows just how extreme the fear is in some minds.

We are in our 30's, with a sick young girl (2 years old).

We WERE OBLIGED to leave our house and now we are electrosensitive, unemployed and recognized handicaped in France.

We didn't want mobiles. We are looking for an area without mast but we don't know where to live and we expected that we could live NORMALLY.

In Sweden, they know the social consequences of EHS.

The Mast Hysteria I fear is that of the gadarene gold rush on behalf of mobile-phone companies to erect and use totally unproven technology making guinea-pigs of all of us.
The bio-effects of microwaves have been scientifically established for decades, we never evolved to cope with this barrage of electromagnetic forces, even the head of the World Health Organisation Gro Harlem Brundtland became electrohypersensitive. Health problems are only now becoming apparent, as with asbestos, tobacco etc. etc.
See www.electrosensitivity.org.uk

I'd be urging caution at Edison's light bulb demonstration. Posterity may judge me ill-favourably, but that wouldn't put me off from urging caution about the use of X-rays in shoe shops too.

I'd urge caution under all circumstances where there are no real advantages to be gained from a technology which has dubious safety. OK, so we can't see a mechanism for harm, but there is some evidence of ill effects and no evidence of any benefit to be gained from the proliferation of phone masts in residential areas.