A parochial church council meeting will decide next week whether to further investigate proposals to site a mobile phone mast in Christ Church, Oakworth.

The body will discuss on Tuesday the possibility of installing the structure inside the church’s tower. The idea had originally been put forward by Surrey-based company New Edge Telecommunications.

The firm’s managing director, Peter Morrell-Brown, said mobile phone masts were safe, adding his company followed strict transparent procedures whenever it identified a potential new site.

He said more masts were needed across the country to cope with the growing demand for wireless coverage. The church hosted a public meeting last week to gauge local reaction to the proposal.

Jackie McGinnis, the Keighley News Oakworth village correspondent, said a number of residents expressed concern about the possible threat of radiation from the mast.

However, she also noted installing it could raise £6,000 a year for the church, one tenth of which would be donated to the village community.

The vicar, the Rev John Rogers, confirmed the figures this week.

But he stressed no decision had been made yet and said the parochial church council would be taking into account the opinions of those who attended the public meeting.

Mr Morrell-Brown said: “We’re happy to meet with anyone to try and mitigate any concerns they may have. There is a robust protocol we have to follow if we are pursuing a church site.

“If the church does turn out to be available we will come up with a scheme which will have the least amount of visual impact and the least amount of impact on the building’s fabric.

“Our engineers have previously worked on hundreds of churches and we always liaise with groups like English Heritage.

“We do appreciate that whatever we say to people some will still see these masts as dangerous.

“All we can do is present them with the facts.”