MAST panic has returned to an area of Bolton as residents in Tonge Moor face the daunting prospect of having two mobile phone towers erected close to each other.

In June, residents living around Tonge Cricket Club were jubilant after plans to build a 15m telecommunications mast within the cricket club grounds was turned down by town hall planners.

But this week their joy turned to fury after they learnt that applicants -- Telecom Securicor Cellular Radio -- have lodged an appeal in a bid to overturn the council's decision.

And residents say their problems have been compounded by a further application by mobile phone giants Orange to erect a mast on the nearby Kwik Save store on Crompton Way.

Brailsford Road resident Leana Thornton, aged 60, who joined with others to form a committee to oppose the first mast application, says she and husband Denver will have masts on both sides if the appeal and new application are successful

"We live adjacent to the club and Kwik Save is also nearby," she said. "If they go ahead, we and other residents will have a lovely view of the 15m cricket club mast through our rear windows and the Kwik Save mast at the front."

She added: "We will have radio masts everywhere and the place will begin to look more like Manchester Airport than a residential area."

The council blocked the original mast application on grounds that it lay within Bolton's Green Belt and would be inappropriate.

Planners felt the mast would have a "detrimental affect to residents' visual amenities".

Mrs Thornton said: "Nothing has changed. We can see no reason for an appeal because the same reasons for refusal still apply. It seems they are determined to get this mast, despite the concerns of hundreds of people."

The residents have now embarked on a campaign to oppose the appeal and have until Tuesday, December 5, to make their views known to the Planning Inspectorate in Bristol.

Residents along Crompton Way and Firwood Lane also plan to lodge a petition against the Orange mast, fearing concerns over potential health risks associated with phone masts as much as the visual impact.

"There has been much said about the radio waves from the masts and the concerns about the effects on health," said Mrs Thornton.

"These have never been proved but they have also never been disproved and until we know for definite that they are safe then we should not have them so close to houses."

But Tonge Ward Councillor Nick Peel, who sits on the council's planning committee, said he would back the residents fight.

"It is very close to houses and schools. People in the area are quite rightly concerned," he told the BEN.

"As a planning committee we agreed with the residents that a mast such as this was unsuitable for the area.

"We cannot comment on the Kwik Save application because each plan has been to be considered on its own merits but ward councillors will be backing the residents over their objections to the cricket ground mast."

Bolton North East MP David Crausby said he sympathised with the residents' concerns.

"I proposed a motion to the house of Commons that residents should be consulted in more detail over mast applications and believe the various phone companies should share masts, rather than build their own," he said.

"They are unsightly in my opinion and we do not know the full picture about potential health problems."