AN electricity company today insisted that five pylons at the centre of a campaign to have them removed were still carrying live cables.

Residents in Clayton-le-Moors have been pressing for the "eyesores" to be removed and replaced with underground cables, saying they are a blight on the landscape and a potential health risk.

Campaigners calling for the removal of the unsightly pylons had claimed the units were not live, but today United Utilities said they were very much in use.

They have been waiting to hear whether the Department of Trade and Industry will order a review into the lines, which run from Huncoat to Clayton-le-Moors.

In a letter to the DTI, Ernest Goodyear, a chartered surveyor representing the householders, said the circuits carried by the overhead line were dead.

He said there was a perception that electro magnetic fields emitted from pylons could cause cancer, although there was no proven link and no cases had ever gone to court.

Studies carried out so far have failed to produce any definite link to low level radiation and any ill health effects on humans.

Mr Goodyear said it was vital to keep the issue before ministers who will make the decision on whether there will be a public enquiry, and is urging people to write to the DTI to express their concerns.

The pylons were installed during the second world war to supply a nearby factory making aircraft engines.

"Since 1940 things have changed somewhat and if the electricity company was to propose building this overhead line now it would not be permitted over the built-up and residential areas of the town," said Mr Goodyear.

"These lines are dead, let's have a review."

A spokesman for United Utilities said: "Those pylons are actually in use, they are not dead.

"They feed a primary substation in Blackburn Road, Clayton-le-Moors, and another one in Great Harwood, so they very much in use to supply the area.

"They are an important part of the network."

John Burke, landlord of the Albion Pub, in Whalley Road, collected a 70-signature petition last year in support of the campaign.

Anyone wanting to register their concerns should write to the DTI, V/153, I Victoria Street, London, SWIH OET.