A special report by the Colchester Evening Gazette revealed a third of all schoolchildren in the town were learning in classrooms less than 500m from mobile phone masts.

The article and accompanying spread was the result of a five-week investigation by chief reporter Laurence Cawley.

It unveiled the exact location, power output, name of operator and height of every operational mobile phone mast in Colchester.

The accompanying graphic used to illustrate mast locations also carried the exact locations of schools within a 500m radius of them.

The story also revealed that two thirds of all masts were located in the less affluent eastern side of the town.

The feature piece carried information about the difficulties involved in piecing the whole picture together and exposed the problems in the way this information is made public.

Problems faced by local authorities in controlling the installation of phone masts were explored, as was the decision-making process of the telecommunications industry in choosing where masts should be put up.

The article also surveyed the research carried out into the health impacts of mobile phone masts, what the current standpoint was, and what research was likely to be carried out in the future, such as non-thermal effects of masts.

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