PROTESTERS are celebrating after scoring a victory over a mobile phone firm which looked set to site a controversial mast near a local gym club.

Planning bosses had given One2One the go-ahead to put a 24-metre-high mast only 50 metres from Basingstoke Gymnastics Club.

But the plan has been scuppered after the site landlords pulled out of negotiations with the phone firm.

The application for the site at Kempshott Park Industrial Estate was granted permission at Basingstoke council's development control committee last month despite a petition of 462 signatures.

However, the council had wrongly been told that the phone operator had researched two other sites and found them unsuitable, so the proposal was set to be brought back to last week's meeting.

But on Wednesday, the gym club's landlord - the Greater Manchester Pension Fund - announced it had withdrawn from discussions.

Verbal assurances have also been received by the gym club from the landlord's head of property investments that it would not allow a mast to be erected on the industrial estate while the club remains a tenant.

Matthew Bolton, premises director at Basingstoke Gymnastics Club, said: "This is the best news we could have hoped for. The proposed mast was a monstrosity - the height of a nine-storey building - and we were disappointed when planning permission was granted a few weeks ago.

"We lost that particular battle but it seems we have now won the war.

"We were fortunate that the site for this mast was on private land as it gave us another party to lobby."

A spokeswoman for the Greater Manchester Pension Fund said: "We have withdrawn from negotiations with One2One, having taken on board the gym club's comments."