A £32,000 Oxford skate park is to be closed after tests found the noise levels were illegally high.

Concrete ramps and jumps were unveiled last month at the Aristotle Lane Recreation Ground, Jericho, despite opposition from 90 per cent of people living within 50 metres.

Oxford City Council has now decided to close it temporarily after an independent expert found the noise constituted a statutory nuisance.

Roger Spriggs, 58, of Plater Drive, said: "It sounds like a group of drunk builders up a scaffold hurling boards on to concrete.

"I can hear it with the double-glazing shut. It makes a dreadful racket.

"I'm not against skateboarders. Two of my sons enjoy skateboarding there. But it has been built in the wrong place -- it's as simple as that."

He received a letter dated May 3 from Tony Payne, principal environmental health officer at the city council, confirming his noise pollution team had not been consulted before the skate park was built.

The council plans further tests and steps to soundproof the area. Expensive acoustic barriers are being considered.

A Kingston Road resident, who asked not to be named, said: "The noise has been absolutely horrendous. They've tried to limit the time people use it to between 10am and 8pm, but that's no use.

"It has been starting as early as 8.30am and going on sometimes until 10.30pm."

She said she had researched the law and commissioned Alan Saunders, of Alan Saunders Associates, Winchester, to test noise levels from her back garden over a two-week period.