IN case you've been leading a sheltered life, the arguments against mobile phone masts being erected in residential areas are well-rehearsed.

The first is based on a so-far unsubstantiated fear - that no one has yet proved that masts are safe, so far as public health's concerned. At best, the jury's still out on that one.

The second is aesthetic. Masts simply look awful, wherever you put them.

It was hardly a feat of crystal ball-gazing to predict that - hot on the heels of Napleton, Warndon Villages and Hallow Road - 2000 wouldn't draw to a close without concerned voices being raised elsewhere for the same reason.

The residents of Cherry Orchard are, indeed, the latest to rally against plans for a mast in their midst, and it's easy to understand their reticence to accept the construction when people like Kate Metcalfe fear living within 30 feet of it.

It's also reasonable for Councillor Francis Lankester to say that the planned mast is in "entirely the wrong place". The problem's this - where's the right place?

It's a question which we've pondered with increasing frequency this year, and it's one which, to our knowledge, the protest lobby hasn't addressed yet.

As a mobile phone-carrying public - a revolution whose speed and scale has taken everyone by surprise - the British crave two things at once.

We want a strong signal wherever we go, so that our not inexpensive hunger for walking and talking can be fed. But few of us want a column of metal in our back yards.

As soon as someone finds a way of reconciling those two demands, we'll all be happy.

Until then, we have to decide whether we want one or the other - it's the very dilemma which, whether they appreciate it or not, is facing the folk of Cherry Orchard this time.

All for one, one for all, but One2One for someone else. Will it ever end?