A plan to build a skatepark in a recreation ground in East Oxford hit the buffers after residents protested at the proposed location.

The Oxford Wheels Project, which has run a skatepark in Meadow Lane, East Oxford, for the past decade, hoped to open a new park in Cowley Marsh recreation ground.

The park at Meadow Lane has wooden ramps, and has to move because the site is in the flood plain.

The charity had worked with its members to come up with the design and had drawn up detailed plans for managing the new park, opening times, security and noise control.

But about 300 residents living nearby signed a petition against the proposal, on grounds including noise and concerns about a public space being run by an organisation.

A report by independent noise consultancy Alan Saunders Associates concluded that predicted noise levels closest to the park would be below the current minimum background level, but the council's environmental health officers disagreed with these findings and said they believed noise would be a problem.

The skatepark was debated for more than two hours at Wednesday's meeting of Oxford City Council's Cowley area committee, with nine people speaking against the plans and seven in support.

The committee voted unanimously not to support the plans in that location.

Chairman Bryan Keen said although they welcomed a new skate park in principle, they had to take residents' views into consideration and Cowley Marsh recreation ground seemed the wrong place for it.

He added: "The city council owns lots of other pockets of land all over the city and one of these may be a better location for the skatepark."

He said they had referred the matter to executive board to consider other sites that might be suitable.

Cowley Marsh ward councillor Saj Malik said: "Young people need this facility desperately and I have every sympathy with them and with the Oxford Wheels Project, which has been trying for years to find somewhere to open a new skatepark.

"But as a ward councillor, my job is to represent the people who voted me in and residents living near the recreation ground did not agree with it being there.

"We need to find a home for the skaters and I am quite willing to work with them to find somewhere else."

OWP chairman Jack Richens was unavailable for comment.