SEVERAL Kew residents are still battling against new phone masts as the Royal Botanic Gardens allow a planning application to go ahead for permission to site five transmitters in the Campanile.

If planning permission is given, the masts at Kew Gardens will be near to certain schools causing concern for parents.

Vanessa Gilbert of Broomfield Road, whose children attend Broomfield House School, said: "The government do not want to recognise these research papers that prove this is detrimental.

"This is ok as it is not known how bad it is but in the meantime they should be more cautious.

"I feel for the people fighting against the North Road mast but what really upset me was that at the meeting these same people voted for the masts to be in the Campanile.

"I thought we really were a community in Kew. People have been putting up money for fighting and I feel dreadful for the elderly people who live opposite the Campanile in the flats.

"One company said it would be much better to have five masts than 15 dotted around but this means that less people will suffer but on a higher level. We have to draw a line somewhere and say enough is enough."

The consent from Kew Gardens was given after a public consultation process to discover the wishes of local residents, which demonstrated a clear majority in favour of the Campanile proposal.

In October 2003, the Kew Society and others from the local community approached the gardens to see whether they would consider housing the masts.

In the past, Kew Gardens had always refused to permit transmitters to be erected on the property, but with the arrival of a new generation of mobile phones residents have become alarmed at the number and scale of installations planned for the area.

By clustering a small number of masts in the Campanile, not only would the masts be out of sight but far fewer masts would be required in total.

Director Professor Peter Crane said: "It soon became clear that Kew would not escape the installation of extra masts, so no masts is not an option.

"Technical reports demonstrate that five masts in the Campanile will save 15 on the street, so we agreed to consider the proposal - but only if there was clear support from Kew residents."

He added: "All the scientific research says that phone masts cause no harm but people still treat them with suspicion.

"I take this concern very seriously and as a resident of Kew myself I wanted to make a responsible decision."

Four companies, Orange, 3, Vodaphone and T-Mobile, will now send a planning application to the council, which will be subject to the usual planning process, including a formal public consultation.