MUM Jackie Richards said her son has been having nightmares over plans for a mobile phone mast near their home.

Mrs Richards, of Sawpit Hill, Hazlemere, said seven-year-old Domenic asked Will I get cancer?' when he heard his parents talking about plans by Orange for a mast on a lamppost opposite their house. The mother-of-three is considering legal action to stop the plan.

Mrs Richards, 35, said: “We do not know what the effects of living so close to it will be in the future.

“My aunt contracted leukaemia living next to a power line when she was in her 30s and had lived next to the power line when she was a child.”

She said she was afraid that mobile phone masts would prove as great a health risk as power lines proved to be.

Orange say that they need a mast there in order to boost the signal in an area where there is lost coverage.

However, Mrs Richards claims that the siting poses an increased health risk to her three children.

She said: “We are in dip which is why they want the mast. But our house is higher up than the mast and the waves will be beamed directly into our rooms.

“I have found out that children and the elderly can soak up five-and-a-half times the level of radiation.

Mrs Richards said that if necessary she would take Orange to court to stop the mast being sited there.

A spokesman for Orange said: “It is an extremely low powered site that has an optimum range of 300-500 metres. We acknowledge public concern but there is no conclusive evidence that makes a link between radio waves, transmitter masts and long-term public health risks.”

She said a typical Orange transmitter site operates at many hundreds of times below national guidelines.