Families living near Byron Avenue in Winchester, Hampshire, were concerned about the potential health dangers.

But the Court of Appeal dismissed a challenge in December against a High Court judge's refusal to review consent for the mast granted by the government.

The case was taken to the House of Lords but the Lords, in a decision on Tuesday, refused leave to appeal.

'Intense emissions'

The challenge had been brought in the names of two children that live near the mast - Phoebe St Leger-Davey, six, and seven-year-old James Harrison.

Lawyers for the children had told the court that they lived and went to school within 250 to 300 metres of the mast site and within the "zone of greatest intensity of electromagnetic emissions".

The children wanted an order overturning a planning inspector's decision last August giving the go-ahead for the 11.79 metre-high mast in the cul-de-sac.

'No better location'

It was argued that Orange should have gone to the county court and challenged the refusal of the owners of two alternative sites - the roof of Hampshire Police headquarters and the car park at Winchester railway station - to allow the mast to be erected.

But the appeal judges held there was no legal obligation on a mobile phone operator to take such court action.

They ruled that the planning inspector had been entitled to conclude that there was no better location than Byron Avenue in the light of indications by Hampshire Police and Network Rail that their sites were not available for operational reasons.

The children's lawyers then petitioned the House of Lords for permission to take the case further but the Lords refused.