AN OVERWHELMING majority of Dursley residents attending a public meeting about the dangers of TETRA masts have backed a campaign asking the police to switch off their masts.

Meeting organiser Lynne Edmunds, a TETRA co-ordinator for Mast Action and consultant for Mast Sanity, asked the public to back her call this action.

All but a handful of the 40-plus crowd that had packed into the Dursley Tabernacle Church Hall supported the resolution and nobody was against it.

However, Mrs Edmunds urged more than just a show of hands. She said: "The people of Dursley cannot afford to be apathetic. You have got to sign up to Dursley Mast Action if we are to succeed."

The meeting had been called to allow people to hear from Barrie Trower, a leading independent radiation expert, about the alleged dangers associated with TETRA masts - such as the one on top of the BT building.

Mr Trower, who trained in the government's microwave warfare establishment in the 1960s, gave a presentation of findings from a wide range of TETRA and radiation associated studies.

He explained that, unlike the rest of the world, the UK laws on allowable radiation levels only take into account their heat creating capacity and not the level of electric and magnetic waves.

Mr Trower said: "We have the highest and therefore the worst safety levels in the world. They are based purely on how warm it can make people feel."

The fact that TETRA masts pulse radiation was also cause for concern for Mr Trower.

"Pulsing microwaves can damage the blood brain barrier, which keeps diseases like throat infections from entering the brain. The pulses can also reduce the ability of the human body to fight illness."

When the floor was opened up for questions Mr Trower was asked for a prediction on what levels of illness could occur in Dursley after prolonged use of TETRA masts.

Working from a population of around 8,000 and based on a previous example of radiation in Fife, Scotland, he estimated that within five years several hundred people would be ill in some way, around 20-30 of them would be seriously ill and ten would have leukaemia.

Mr Trower added that he thought the law was biased against protesters such as Mast Sanity because they have to prove that masts are causing people harm, rather than the government and the companies having to prove that they are safe.

However, it was not all one-way traffic as a few questions and points from the floor were left unanswered.

One resident said that he had asked Cancer Research to join the objectors against TETRA masts but had received no reply.

Another resident questioned the level of concern if a simple insulation of a pair of net curtains had seemingly solved one family's problems.

The fact that nobody in central government or the opposition has highlighted this before gave another resident grounds to question how dangerous TETRA was.