And the council lost the fight.

Mayor John Perry said the council felt powerless to stop Telstra from erecting the proposed nine antennas on top of a unit block in Merrylands.

Cr Perry said four years ago the council tried to stop Telstra from erecting a mobile phone tower in Merrylands in the NSW Land and Environment Court but had been unsuccessful.

He said Telstra, which is protected under the federal Telecommunications Act, does not require local council permission to erect its towers or antennas. ``They only come to us as a matter of courtesy,'' Cr Perry said. ``We've been to the Land and Environment Court before and it cost us a lot of money. We may as well throw our money on the road and let people pick it up.''

Cr Perry said he did not want any Telstra antennas to be erected close to childcare centres or schools.

``We don't agree with them and if we had a way of stopping them, we would,'' he said.

Cr Perry said Telstra had recently removed a mobile-phone tower from Merrylands Road because it was too close to a high-rise apartment building.

He said Telstra had described the tower as ``high-impact'' because it was the same height as the apartment building.

In comparison, Cr Perry said the telecommunications carrier was calling the nine-antenna proposed for 285Merrylands Road ``low impact.''.

``In their words, they say that being low impact, they don't create the same problems,'' Cr Perry said. ``But how low impact these ones are, we don't know, only time will tell.''

Telstra said the nine antennas complied with Australian Communications Authority regulations and Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency recommendations concerning electromagnetic-radiation exposure levels.

``As is the case with the many thousands of Telstra's mobile network sites, the proposed facility is designed to operate significantly below the safe maximum levels,'' a Telstra spokesman said.