The Mobile Carriers Forum met Education Department representatives to air grievances about the department policy that requires mobile phone base stations to be kept 500 metres from schools.

An Education Department spokeswoman said the department was now considering the Mobile Carriers Forum comments on the policy.

Miranda MP Barry Collier, who has opposed mobile towers around his electorate in the past, said he supported the policy.

Mr Collier said that until there was an answer on whether radiation from mobile towers was damaging, it was too much of a risk to put children next to them for six hours a day, five days a week.

``While the jury is out on electromagnetic radiation the 500 metres (buffer) should apply,'' Mr Collier said.

Forum program manager Matt Evans said the policy was first applied in 1997 and had been highlighted in cases over the past year in support of written objections to proposed base stations.

Mr Evans told department representatives the policy had no regard for the way mobile network facilities operated.

``A buffer zone between schools and mobile phone towers is fundamentally flawed,'' Mr Evans said.

``The forum has found that if the department's policy of 500m buffer zones was uniformly applied around all schools...60 per cent of the built-up area of Sutherland Shire would have no mobile network coverage at all.

``The policy is not being applied uniformly and we note the department has not ruled out building schools within 500m of existing mobile network facilities.

``The policy is 11 years old, flawed and should be withdrawn.''