a supporter in the form of one of the Island's top engineers.

BDC, whose plans to build a communications tower at Faraway in Warwick has run into fierce opposition from neighbourhood residents, maintains that there are no health risks from the tower.

And yesterday, Bermuda Telephone Company marketing assistant vice president Francis Mussenden said he believes that aesthetics, rather than any health concerns, could be behind protests at the tower.

Mr. Mussenden, a chartered engineer, said he fully endorsed statements made by a Canadian medical health officer in a letter printed in The Royal Gazette last week. The letter said that "there is no public health benefit in practising prudent avoidance with respect to cellular phone transmission antennae''.

Yesterday Mr. Mussenden said: "I am more concerned about my microwave than I am about cellular phones and I support everything that was said in the paper today.

"I think it may well be a question of aesthetics, which I can fully understand. People don't want this thing in their back yard, especially if they have just moved to the area. I don't think a lot of people knew what was going to happen when planning permission was granted.'' Last night a spokesman for CARE, the pressure group set up to block the tower's construction, dismissed Mr. Mussenden's allegations, saying that aesthetic considerations had nothing to do with their concerns.

"You can't even see the tower where I live,'' Steve Thomson said.

"But we now have enough scientific information which says that it is a potential health risk and that it shouldn't be put up where children live.

"There must be alternatives. If the UK had 38 towers every 28 miles it would look like a pin cushion -- we must be doing something wrong.

Mr. Thomson argued that, because both sides in the dispute had come up with contradictory evidence about the health risks of the tower, that indicated that there was some uncertainty over whether tower emissions are harmful.

ENVIRONMENT ENV