Millions of people want mobile phones but they don't want the masts that go with them anywhere near their homes.

There are going to be huge conflicts before the mobile phone companies erect up to 80,000 more masts throughout the country to achieve complete coverage.

The Government must sort out the planning and environmental mess quickly. At present no one can find out where all the existing masts are and masts less than 15 metres high do not need permission.

It needs to insist all new masts must have applications and that councils have greater powers than at present to refuse them.

And it must give definite guidance on health risks so councils could, for instance, refuse any applications within a specified distance from a school.

This in turn would make the phone companies think harder about good sites for masts and sharing them in every possible case.

Great care must be taken to avoid putting high and ugly masts in beauty spots.

They can be made to blend in better with the landscape than most in Sussex where there has generally been precious little effort or persuasion on the part of councillors.

There's no way in which the national enthusiasm for mobile phones is going to disappear quickly and the pressure for new masts will be immense.

But the placing of them needs much greater care than has been evident in the past.

Some sites in Sussex are appalling and would never have been allowed if councils had been given proper powers.