Countryside campaigners are celebrating after councillors rejected plans for a 50-bedroom hotel at The Oxfordshire Golf Club, between Milton Common and Thame.

Now owner Leaderboard is considering whether to appeal against the decision by South Oxfordshire District Council and ask a government planning inspector to decide the issue.

Leaderboard applied for both the hotel and extensions to the clubhouse.

The main driving force behind it was a bid to host the Solheim Cup tournament in 2011, but that bid failed.

The club has hosted several big European tour events, including the Benson and Hedges, between 1996 and 1999.

It now wants to get back to those sort of competitions and said the hotel was an important step to safeguarding the financial future of the club.

But planning officers disagreed and recommended the application should be refused because it is in a prominent part of the countryside and hotels should be in town centres.

Michael Tyce, chairman of the Thame branch of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, said: "The proposed building would have been a blot on the landscape.

"Not only would the building be substantial but with its position on the top of a hill it would have been visible for miles around, all the way to the Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

"Planners have done well to throw out this horrendous proposal."

Planning committee members voted 11 to two against the plan.