HUNDREDS of angry residents fed up with living in the shadows of giant electricity pylons have signed a petition demanding their removal.

A row of huge metal pylons snake through otherwise quiet residential roads in Bushey Heath, carrying wires, which carry electricity, over dozens of houses.

Giant pylons are positioned only metres from houses in Richfield Road, Brooke Close and Larken Drive in Bushey Heath and now 380 people have signed the petition to remove them.

Koyes Choudhury, of Clarks Mead, Bushey Heath, has organised the petition and knows better than most what it is like living underneath one of the pylons.

One of the 100 foot tall pylons, set in the back garden of a house in Richfield Road, towers over Clarks Mead and overshadows Mr Choudhury's driveway, only several metres from his front door.

Now Mr Choudhury has contacted National Grid because he is worried about the impact the pylon is having on people's health.

"Like a mother-in-law, it is always there," he said.

"I am very close, closer than most, and I have a young grandson and then you hear all the news and read about the links to cancer and we feel it is scary.

"It is ugly, it is noisy, it is scary and we want to get rid of them all from Bushey."

Mr Choudhury says that he can hear the buzzing of the electricity passing through the cables of the pylon from his doorstep and says it could be a hazard with children attempting to climb it.

He adds that although the pylon was there when he bought his house five years ago, he has recently become concerned following stories in the media linking pylons and cancer, and particularly to childhood leukaemia.

He said: "When I bought this house I was not that concerned with the pylon, but now we have more reports in the media and now we are more scared.

"If it is true and these things can cause cancer, are we doing the right thing living here, or are the National Grid taking advantage of us?

"In the summer when the schools finish children play in the road and they are right underneath it.

"And we want to know, are they safe?"

Mr Choudhury has spent the past two weeks canvassing public opinion, by knocking on residents' doors and asking for signatures in the street.

And now he intends to send the petition demanding the removal of the pylons to National Grid and the Prime Minister.

He added: "They can go underground or whatever and then they can come up in a field away from people's homes.

"I think National Grid has to come up with a solution sooner rather than later because the residents are not happy in Bushey.

"We live in fear of them and we are very angry about this and are hoping that something will be done."

A representative from the National Grid declined to comment on Mr Choudhury's petition.

However, the representative added that more than £300m had been spent around the world investigating the safety of electric and magnetic fields (EMFs) and "the balance of scientific evidence to date suggests that EMFs do not cause disease".