MP GORDON Prentice is pressing ministers to ensure that mobile phone transmitter masts are not a risk to human health.

And he wants new guidance on their use to be tough on safety and issued quickly after controversial attempts to site masts near Cherry Tree railways in Blackburn and St Anne's and St Joseph's Primary School, Sandy Lane, Accrington.

The Pendle MP has been pressing health ministers for the past year for "robust data which confirms their safety -- or otherwise."

But his interests has been sharpened by claims that a transmitter mast in Barnoldswick in his constituency could be a threat to health and that the Government is to issue a new guidance on the issue.

Mr Prentice said: "For more than a year I have been assured by ministers there was and is no danger whatsoever that I am determined to get into the public domain all the relevant information."

He quizzed Environment Minister Beverley Hughes on the issue this week and she told him that following last month's independent report into mobile phones the government was minded for the first time to introduce a requirement for all new telecommunications masts to go through a full planning application process and receive planning permission from the local authority before construction.

She said the Government was consulting widely on the issue adding: 'We shall issue a consultation paper on this and related guidance as soon as practicable."

Mr Prentice said: "There is very real public concern about these issues. I want to see the new guidance issued quickly."