A PACKED town council meeting in Marlborough on Monday heard of fears that radiation from mobile phone transmitters can lead to cancer and other illnesses.

Residents from the Blowhorn Street area crowded into the town hall to voice concerns over a proposal to put three mobile phone masts on top of the telephone exchange in Lower Prospect.

So many attended that the town council meeting had to be transferred from the council chamber into the large courtroom.

Retired Marlborough College teacher Chris Joseph, who lives in Alexandra Terrace, said evidence from other areas showed there was a greater incidence of cancer among people living close to transmitters.

Peter Baker, a member of the Whitley Road Residents' Association in Aldbourne, said there had been a noticeable increase in ill health among residents in the three years since a mobile phone mast went up nearby.

Mr Baker said: "We have problems with headaches, an inability to sleep at night and fatigue."

Four weeks ago the town council's planning committee recommended the telephone exchange mast plan for approval. At the time there had been no objections to the plan, but it then emerged that residents had not been told about it. Objections arose once letters were sent out.

Coun Marian Hannaford, whose husband David is a former leukaemia sufferer, made a passionate plea to the council to think hard before approving any more transmitter plans.

She referred to an approach that has been made to the town council by T Mobile about possibly siting a transmitter above the town hall.

Coun Hannaford said she questioned the cost in health terms of the council receiving 'a few thousand a year' in rental from the company.

The transmitters for the third generation mobile phones, which can transmit photographs, operate at much higher power than previous masts, said Coun Hannaford.

She said: "Some scientists suggest that microwave irradiation can cause changes in our molecular systems and that these changes to the human energy fields could over time lead to ill health and disease."

Coun Hannaford repudiated assurances that the radio waves were harmless saying similar assurances had been made over BSE and smoking.

She said the heads of both St Peter's Junior School and Kingsbury Hill House had expressed concern that a transmitter at the town hall would be closer to their schools than the 500 metres stated in Government safety guidelines for radio masts.

The council agreed by a vote of eight-two, with four abstentions, that talks over a transmitter at the town hall should be dropped.

Councillors also agreed to reconsider their decision over the masts at the telephone exchange at the next meeting of the planning committee on October 14.