Cancer link to living under a power line

But one strand of opinion unites the two women - both believe they are surrounded by the ill health caused by the high-voltage power lines that run within yards of their homes.

Cran, now 74, has been campaigning for more than a decade for the power lines that dominate the Shortlees estate in Kilmarnock to be resited away from local houses. Health campaigners blame the power lines for the above average cancer rate that afflicts the area.

South of the Border, Asbury has been battling with the Department of Trade and Industry for recognition that power lines are responsible for a series of miscarriages and other ailments that have affected women living in the Trentham district of Stoke on Trent.

"We have to live with this blight in our midst and even though the evidence that it causes health problems is growing all the time, it is a real battle to make people listen," she said.

Trentham and Shortlees are just two of the ‘clusters’ of ill health spread throughout Britain that campaigners believe are caused by electromagnetic fields (EMFs) from high-voltage cables. Others have emerged in Tranent, East Lothian, Abergavenny in Wales, Bolton in Lancashire and Northallerton in North Yorkshire.

Some, like Shortlees, consist of estates that were built where they were simply because the land, already crossed by pylons and power lines, was going cheap.

"All too often councils would snap up land like that for council housing because it was going cheap," said Alasdair Philips, of Powerwatch, a consumer watchdog organisation. "What they didn’t know was what would happen to some of the people living there."

There is no escaping the 80ft tall high-voltage pylons in the Shortlees estate. They run down the middle of the main road, sit in the centre of a roundabout and overshadow the rows of houses. So used is the community to their presence that children play football on the grass below the pylons.

But the 3,000 residents claim that as a result of prolonged exposure they have a greater than average chance of developing cancer.

Every person has a story to tell. Each has lost family or friends to the disease which they are certain is caused by radiation from the overhead cables.

In one group of eight houses closest to the overhead cables nine people have died of cancer in the past 15 years.

Cran has so far survived bowel cancer but has lost her husband to the disease. Her daughter has suffered breast cancer. "There is no argument and there is no doubt here," she said. "It is the power pylons which are killing people. We have three new cases of cancer at the moment and they will not stop emerging until the cables are removed or put underground."

Neighbour Jan Haining lost both her daughter Lorraine, 25, and nine-year-old granddaughter Fiona, who both lived underneath the power lines, to leukaemia.

There was no history of the disease in her family and she believes there is too much of a "coincidence" to be just bad luck. "We all want to get out of here but the problem is that most of us have nowhere to go. I am always worried about what will happen next."

On the Trentham estate earlier this year, residents became so frustrated by official inaction they decided to conduct their own study.

"The results were pretty alarming," said Asbury, a residential care home worker who surveyed 162 households within 25 metres of a high-voltage cable and a further 113 in the 150 metre zone. "We had 11 miscarriages within 25 metres and one in the area beyond.

"I just do not know how much more evidence the government wants before it takes action. We need the cables moved to a reasonable distance from our homes."

The US study was commissioned by the California Public Utilities Commission. Scientists reviewed scores of previous studies from all over the world, including Britain, and carried out new research in the San Francisco area.

The researchers said they believed that EMFs increased the risks of life-threatening illnesses.

For scientists like Denis Henshaw, a professor in the physics department at Bristol University, the flaw in the campaigners’ argument was that there was no discernible way in which electro-magnetic fields could cause the health effects that were being witnessed.

Henshaw now argues that is no longer the case. "There are a number of very plausible mechanisms and so people can no longer say we do not know what is going on, " he said.

Henshaw believes power lines produce "corona ions" - molecules in the air with an electric charge. These attach themselves to airborne pollutants such as car exhaust fumes and give them an electrical charge. This means there is a greater chance of them being absorbed by the body when inhaled and they can lodge in body organs.

Some scientists believe only certain people are sensitive to the effects of the pollutants, which explains why some are affected but not others. "We believe that around 5% are sensitive so the other 95% can live near power lines and not be affected at all," said Powerwatch’s Philips.

One family which is convinced there is a link is the Studholmes, who bought a house in Bury, Greater Manchester, in 1989 where an electricity meter emitted strong electromagnetic fields.

Within 18 months their son Simon had developed acute lymphatic leukaemia and died in 1992, aged 13.

The family and two others were granted legal aid to sue but suffered a setback when the American National Cancer Institute ruled out a link.

On the Trentham estate, Andrea Holt, 35, blames the high-voltage line that towers over their home for the loss of one baby and the miscarriage of another.

"There are many others living here who have suffered miscarriages," she said. "When I began to study the potential risks I was shocked that we are exposed to such high voltages.

"The companies should put the lines underground. It might be expensive but what price do you put on a child's life?"

Saftey Limit

The safety limit for electromagnetic fields is expected to be lowered from 1600 microteslas to 100.

Up to 12,000 miles of high-voltage transmission cables criss-cross Britain with around 3,000 miles in Scotland. They run directly over or close to around 27,000 homes and 600,000 people live within 100 metres.

The new limits will bring Britain into harmony with guidelines produced four years ago by the International Commission on Non-Ionising Radiation (ICNIRP), which are being increasingly accepted by other countries across Europe.

Health campaigners may renew demands for the eventual burial of all power cables, but electricity companies say every mile of underground cabling costs nearly 16m to install while overhead cables cost about 800,000 for the same distance.