PLANS to build floodlit tennis courts near a village which boasts one of the darkest skies in theCotswolds have been thrown out.

The Wychwood Tennis Club applied to build four tennis courts, a small pavilion and 24 floodlights at Wychwood Golf Club, just north of Lyneham.

But residents of the tiny hamlet said it showed “flagrant disregard” for planning law protecting the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB).

The tennis club said the £400,000 scheme would have allowed it to expand its junior coaching sessions, which is “decimated” during long winter nights.

The club is currently based in Shipton-under-Wychwood and has only three non-lit tennis courts.

But West Oxfordshire District Council’s uplands area planning subcommittee rejected the plan on Monday because of the floodlights impact on the AONB.

Lyneham resident Howard Sherwood, 55, said: “We are in the Cotswold AONB and there are protections within the council’s planning policy, and light pollution is a major component of that.”

He also said Lyneham, with one exception, has single track roads and the application would have caused congestion and road safety issues.

Lyneham Parish Meeting chairman Judy Lewis said: “We were elated with the decision.

“We are an unlit and very rural community and it was felt the choice of location for this was very inappropriate.”

She said about 50 people – almost half the households in Lyneham – had attended a parish meeting last year to express their objections The Cotswolds Conservation Board, which objected to the scheme, said Lyneham and the surrounding area had the second darkest skies in the Cotswold AONB.

Wychwood Tennis Club chairman elect Roger Hollingdale, who led the project, said: “Without floodlighting, winter tennis is very limited so that our junior coaching schemes are decimated and general play is reduced considerably.

“We gave a very detailed application, which was supported by external independent reports, that demonstrated there would be minimal to no effect of the lights on the landscape and the AONB.”