Campaigners were furious to see a mobile phone mast installed near a school just five weeks after a council said it would not happen.

They may now be stuck with the structure after officials admitted they missed the deadline for making an objection.

Residents of Hangleton, Hove, spent weeks gathering signatures for a petition to stop an Orange mast being erected on land at the junction of West Way and Hangleton Way, close to Hove Park Lower School and Greenleas park.

They presented the petition to Brighton and Hove City Council.

It looked like their campaign had been a success when they received a letter from Hangleton councillor Mark Barnard saying the mast application had been rejected.

But council officials now admit they missed the deadline for objecting so their views were not taken into account.

A spokesman for the council said the deadline was missed because officers were too busy dealing with piles of applications from companies hoping to beat a change of rules about masts.

He said: "The regulations changed in mid-August and, prior to that, the phone companies inundated us with a huge batch of applications.

"We worked very hard to process them on time. In this case we regarded the site as inappropriate.

"But, owing to a mix-up on dates, our response missed the deadline by a couple of days.

"We very much regret this just as we very much regret the phone company's unwillingness to take the response we gave them into account."

He said the mast did not need planning permission because it was less than 15m tall but the council was entitled to have its opinion taken into account.

David Garner, of Hangleton Way, said: "A lot of us signed the petition because no one thought it was right a mast should go up there. There is a lot of evidence saying they are not safe."

Rudy Compagnoni, also of Hangleton Way, said: "A lot of people objected and I signed a petition against it and thought the whole thing had been dropped. Then I found out it had gone up after all.

"There is a question over the safety of masts and they spoil the look of the area but they seem to spring up like toadstools."

A spokesman for Orange said: "We submitted the application on August 16 and, under local authority rules, they had 42 days to respond.

"They didn't reply until October.

"If an authority does not give a response within the deadline, the application is considered approved, which is what happened in this case."