MOBILE company O2 has targeted land owned by a wildlife trust in a new bid to get a phone mast in Chafford Hundred.

The communications giant has contacted Essex Wildlife Trust about putting a mast on its land at the corner of Warren and Clockhouse Lanes.

O2 put in several planning applications for phone masts to Thurrock Council last year, all of which have been opposite homes and none of which have been successful.

Tracy Law set up the pressure group No Masts on Chafford to fight the phone masts, which the group believes present a serious health risk to residents.

Essex Wildlife Trust contacted her after receiving O2’s proposal and together they came up with two alternative sites for masts which aren’t opposite homes. The first is on a cliff between Lancaster Road, Warren Lane, Palmerston Road and Devonshire Road. The second is between Mill Lane, Palmerston Road and Philip Sydney Road.

Tracy added: “Of course no mast would be preferable.

“However, residents accept negotiating a site considered the best solution is preferable to the continued threat of planning applications by O2 for a site opposite homes.”

Tory ward councillor Tunde Ojetola said he is “disappointed” O2 continues to plague the town with applications.

He said: “O2 is going about this the wrong way again.

“The way forward would be a formal consultation, giving residents all the facts.”

A spokesman for Cellular Systems, for O2, said: “We are still pulling the history and associated concerns together.

“We are engaging fully with Tracy Law and the Wildlife Trust.”