SO English Heritage has finally wakened from its slumbers. And what dastardly prince finally planted the kiss that brought this defender of the revered and the beautiful roaring into consciousness?

It was the threat of English skyscrapers. English Heritage is worried that buildings which are too tall will ruin the traditional skylines of British cities and produce a blot (or should that be an exclamation mark?) that will be with us for generations.

They are currently alarmed by a proposed building dubbed the "erotic gherkin." Sounds like we should all be. Where have English Heritage been for the last 10 years or so?

What about the eyesores that have been appearing the length and breadth of the country for most of the last decade?

Have you noticed them? Don't they offend you? Is there a view left in England that isn't marred by one?

I'm talking about those spider-like monstrosities that peer at you from hilltops, from roadsides, from street corners, even from school roofs.

I'm talking about mobile phone masts.

Like John Wyndham's killer plants, the Triffids, these spidery towers have marched across our countryside, unchecked by any planning regulations, to kill off thousands of our favourite vistas.

After a century in which our main countryside despoilers were chains of electricity pylons (mainly obscured in valleys) these metalwork monstrosities have been allowed to spring up uncontrolled in some of the best vantage points in the country without hardly a murmur of disapproval from the bodies appointed to safeguard and nurture this country's heritage. Where was English Heritage and our other environmental protectors while all this was going on?

It's taken ordinary men and women to begin to strike back. Once the warnings were sounded about possible dangers from mobile phones people began to worry about the risks from the even more powerful transmission masts themselves.

And so began the successful campaigns by parent groups against the inclination of cash-strapped schools to accept lucrative mast deals if they allowed them on classroom roofs or school grounds.

It's the folks with masts over the garden fence I feel sorry for. And, of course, there are no pressure groups to protect the remote countryside against these monsters.

Next time you are out in the car just see how many mobile phone masts you can count. I think you'll be amazed. It will rapidly become all too obvious that it is already too late to save much of our countryside from visual despoilation.

How can the effect of a few super-tall buildings on our overcrowded, already over-developed and over-congested cities begin to compare with this appalling violation of our countryside and the destruction of many cherished vistas?

We must all strive however, to prevent further threats from bigger and more complex masts serving future generations of communicators.

I haven't much hope.

Because as President George Bush is currently in the process of demonstrating to the world, when there's money to be made what price the environment?