THERE is disquiet and concern, not to mention controversy, in parts of central Dursley about possible health risks arising from the new police communications mast on the British Telecom building. Here Lynne Edmunds, TETRA co-ordinator for Mast Action and TETRA consultant for Mast Sanity, from Amberley, states her case.

WITHIN three days of the company responsible for the TETRA network of police communications masts, 02, trialling the equipment in Dursley there have been biological reactions to the emissions from many people living in some of the roads which climb the hill in the estate approached off May Lane.

The TETRA is sited on top of the very high BT building in the middle of Dursley close to the leisure centre, shopping centre and a number of homes and is in the form of three small antennae on different corners of the roof.

According to Airwave 02, only one of those three is a sender, the other two are receivers. The tall Orange mast already there is centrally sited and to date no one has, as far as I am aware, complained of effects experienced when that was erected.

As someone who has been campaigning for the safe siting of TETRA and other communications masts for three years - since threatened with a TETRA in the middle of Amberley, so researching the system, attending conferences and talking to independent expert scientists - I was contacted and told that a number of families had just lost their TV pictures (a 'metal mesh' effect was and is permanently covering their screens).

When I knocked on a couple of dozen doors in the roads reported to me, most were extremely annoyed at the disruption to televisions and videos and likely cost of correction. These included a couple who had got hold of 02 executives to be told "it was their responsibility to put it right because they must have old boosters installed which had not been on the register 02 consulted before selecting the band for the masts".

When talking to householders I was extremely concerned to hear that, apart from the TV problem that a number had started experiencing ill-health symptoms within two or three days of the start of emissions from the TETRA mast which 02 admitted were trials (the system is due to go live throughout the area in June).

The commonest effects reported - entirely unsolicited - are likely to be linked to the line of radiation emitted 24 hours a day in the main beam of the TETRA, but it is also impossible to discount the effects from the side beams also sent off. None of the people concerned had suffered from these symptoms routinely before.

They are:

1 Repeatedly being woken in the middle of the night with a strong migraine-type headache. Then feeling completely awake and unable to go back to sleep.

2. Suddenly developing all over skin rashes or blotches. The latter were covering parts of the body and red and itchy in appearance (also seen). No other causes could explain them (i.e. grandchildren did not have infectious conditions).

3. Nose bleeds. These were reported by people who did not experience them in adult life - an embarrassing symptom which people are likely to remember if they do have it.

4. A feeling of uncomfortable warmth all over the body whatever they did (ie have a cool bath, reduce clothing, open windows. This is the only effect of the low-level microwave radiation - the SAR effect covering the heating of human tissue - which is covered by the safety guidelines which the British government adheres to - and quotes as a measure of the safety of radiation-emitting installations).

5. A constant feeling of exhaustion - when they can identify no reason for it. Expert advice from independent British scientists who have worked on the characteristics of this type of non-ionising radiation - and have compiled research data on it from all over the world covering the past 30 years, notably four very important scientific findings in the past two years - is that all the above have been identified as the commonest short term conditions linked to absorption into the human body and brain of too much low-level radiation. They warn that these reactions will not stop. It is well known that once absorbed by humans, radiation cannot be expelled but continues to build up in tissue with potential long-term dangers.

As a result of the above - covering initially 15 households but with many more in the same areas yet to be contacted - a special group has been formed in Dursley which had its first meeting on April 1 to decide on the range of actions open to the community, including legal remedies.

Mast Action and Mast Sanity's solicitors agree that liability for health damage which can be proved lies with the Police Authority which signed the contract for the introduction of the TETRA system (ie the chief constable) as well as with the council passing the planning application for that particular, inappropriate site which is too near to homes, schools etc and of course 02 which selected the sites, and the Home Office which is pressing for the system to start up countrywide. (Eighty objections were received to the 02 application for the Dursley TETRA and that it was passed by Stroud District Council by just one vote).

Apart from the above ill-health effects, there is even greater concern over the short and long-term dangers to children. Sir William Stewart, former government chief scientist and chairman of the Stewart Committee on telecommunications and health, did not have the brief to consider TETRA in detail before he issued his committee's report three years ago, but did strongly urge frequencies around 16Hz be avoided because they were too close to the frequency of the human brain.

Two months later the Home Office and official Radiocommunications Agency sanctioned BT - new company 02 later took over - to let TETRA emit on 17.6Hz which was within this danger band. In March, 2001, Sir William, giving evidence to a Parliamentary select committee on telecommunications and health, described the TETRA system as "a hazard" because among other things of its 17.6Hz frequency.

The major concern in Dursley is the damage this radiation could be doing to children living in the area mentioned - and possibly other areas. It is proved, and common knowledge, that they absorb 50 per cent more radiation than adults and since, their lives are ahead of them, will build up a much higher levels if living in areas of unacceptably high radiation from an early age. Their risks of leukaemia are increased as are their risks of cancers in later life. There are at least 20 children living in the streets referred to in Dursley, where adults started suffering from ill effects immediately the TETRA's started emitting.

Additionally, the dangerous frequency for TETRA - 17.6Hz - is more damaging to children because their brainwaves are not stabilised until they are around 12. Therefore as Dr Gerard Hyland, ex-head of physics at Nottingham University and now an international consultant in the field of low-level radiation and its characteristics, has reported in The Lancet and other journals, the radiation lock onto their brainwaves, alters the brain's action and can even stop it stabilising properly. The results of that are a reduction in their learning capacity and onset of disruptive behaviour - lifelong effects.

It is intolerable that these dangers should be imposed on residents when one of the top scientists and government officers in the country has strongly urged they - and TETRA - be avoided in residential areas and near schools. Leading scientists and doctors, internationally are saying the same thing.

Please act to help the Dursley residents who are 24 hours a day absorbing this dangerous level of radiation since the TETRA was erected - and use your strong influence to see that the councils and police and this Labour government starting with the Home Office and John Prescott's department dealing with planning, are advised and urged to take protective action. This system should not be allowed to go live in Gloucestershire under current circumstances.

In the near future we will get results into local populations around masts in Stroud and elsewhere. To date I have not had time to try to confirm reports that primary school children living and working near the police station mast have started getting nose bleeds after the start of those trials. The Mast Sanity specialist on ill-health circles in the vicinity of masts will be coming to the area and checking out radiation emissions around all the TETRA's with the help of the latest monitoring equipment.

Apropos ill-health effect on police of using TETRA - the latest police region to report these effects is West Mercia, where the system has been used fore around a year. The minimum of cases reported to the Police Federation branches to date, as far as Mast Action and Mast Sanity know, is over 220 - having risen from under 100 to 170 and now to this total in six months. Police from Manchester - where TETRA has broken down again for around the third time despite intense work by 02 and Airwave to correct its many deficiencies, policing the Fairford March were well aware of its reported dangers to users and very worried about these.

There is also the unresolved situation of the new community support officers - 60 members of the general public being recruited for this role in Gloucestershire, I believe - who in near total ignorance and without even the protection of their own Federation - will be obliged to use TETRA.

The whole situation is quite intolerable and on behalf of endangered residents and police officers, I call on the Police Authority, the chief constable and both councils to get to grips with it immediately. Emissions should be halted in Dursley and anywhere else ill-health effects are being reported immediately.

Pictured: The Tetra mast on the roof of the old post office in Dursley GJA604V03