Vodaphone has lodged an application to build a 10-metre mast and equipment cabinet on the pavement at St Peter's Church in Belgrave Road, Blatchington.

Ward councillor Carolyn Lambert is appealing for people to object to 'this outrageous proposition' and said: 'How cynical as well to submit the application at a time when many people are likely to be on holiday?'

She said the pole and antennae would stand on a normal-sized pavement on a busy route to the nearby primary school. An application for a 12-metre pole was refused in 2005 because its siting and design was considered 'to represent an incongruous intrusion into the street scene'.

Cllr Lambert said: 'And a dangerous impediment to pedestrians might be added.'

Seaford Residents' Association spokesman Peter White said: 'There have been several applications for structures like blocks of flats which have less of an environmental impact and they have been turned down.'

'It is totally wrong to think of a mobile phone mast outside a Saxon-Norman church in a conservation area.'

Priest-in-charge of St Peter's, the Rev Brian Cook, told the Express: 'It is rather strange that in their application Vodaphone say the mast would be next to a Romano-British cemetery.

'They admit it themselves – this is a sacred space and it is totally inappropriate to site a mast here. It is yet another visual intrusion. It is also next to a 300-year-old flint wall – and we know the wall is that old as we have pictures of it.'

St Peter's is a Norman church on an earlier Saxon foundation. Although not as old as Bishopstone church, it is older than the parish church of St Leonard in the town. Lewes District Council will make the final decision on the mast.