A RESIDENT has admitted campaigners are on “a hiding to nothing” in their efforts to stop a phone mast being built.

Members of Colchester Council’s planning committee are expected to allow telecommunications giants Vodafone and O2 to place the mast and cabinet on a grass verge near the junction of Welshwood Park Road and Parsons Heath, Colchester.

In March, the committee rejected a similar bid because the cabinet was in too prominent a position.

But a revised application, to be discussed on Thursday would see the cabinet moved, leaving Colchester Council with no grounds to block it.

As a result Keith Baines, chairman of Welshwood Park Residents’ Association, said he believed the mast would be built.

He said: “We have no grounds on which to appeal. We feel we’re on a hiding to nothing.”

Mr Baines pointed to a recent World Health Organisation report, which identified a possible link between brain cancer and radiation from mobile phones.

He said: “This is now becoming rather like the tobacco situation where the companies did their own surveys and said it won’t be a problem, but the World Health Organisation is beggining to sit up and take notice on this.”