CAMPAIGNERS who want to save public tennis courts in North Oxford from privatisation have used a questionnaire to urge councillors to scrap the plan.

Residents who pay and play are fighting a city council proposal to lease Alexandra Courts in Summertown to Wildwood Leisure, a private company.

Tennis enthusiasts have urged city councillors to ditch the plan to allow the company to modernise facilities off Middle Way, where 14 grass and six hard courts, run by the council, are making a loss.

The council's plan to grant a 25-year lease to Wildwood alarmed residents and a survey conducted by city councillors has revealed widespread opposition.

Liberal Democrat councillors for Summertown, Jean Fooks and Stuart McCready, organised a public meeting in May and followed this up with a questionnaire to find out what people wanted.

Ms Fooks said: "There was a fantastic response to the consultation and it showed very clearly that local people value the space very highly and do not want the courts to be leased to a private company."

Mr McCready added: "The city council should go back to square one as it considers how to improve public facilities for Summertown and for tennis players."

Out of about 2,300 questionnaires distributed in Summertown, 271 or 12 per cent have been returned so far.

There was overwhelming opposition to leasing the courts to a private company - 234 of the responses, 86 per cent.

When asked whether they viewed the courts as an open green space or as a tennis facility, 156 (57 per cent) people valued the open green space most important, compared to 67 (25 per cent) who put tennis use as paramount.

Of the alternatives suggested, 161 (59 per cent) responses supported converting some of the grass courts to open park, and 106 (39 per cent) supported converting some of the grass courts to hard courts, to increase the time they could be used.

Chris Goodall, who organised the play-in at the courts earlier this month, said more than 250 people, aged up to 90, came to play tennis to show their opposition to the proposed deal with Wildwood.

He added: "I have to say that the standard of tennis was generally not quite as good as at Wimbledon, but everybody had enormous fun.

"And we made a powerful point - the local community is completely opposed to the proposals put forward by the city council.

"We now need to come up with detailed plans for a community not-for-profit trust to take over the operation of the courts and the surrounding area.

"We'll be holding a meeting soon for local people to propose how we could run the courts better than the city council."

The issue will be discussed at the North area committee tomorrow but an officer's report on the leasing proposal will not be discussed until September.

Andrew Parsons, a spokesman for Wildwood Leisure, declined to comment.