I FIND it hard to believe that if we lose the Neva Road tennis club it will because North Somerset Council has forced it to close. The reason being that

I FIND it hard to believe that if we lose the Neva Road tennis club it will because North Somerset Council has forced it to close.The reason being that the council had received a complaint from Sylvia and Ethel Spackman that the light from the tennis club's floodlights bother them. The council, it appears, have to act on receiving any complaint of this nature. But I question the wisdom of the council actually going the lengths they did, telling the club that they could only use their floodlights for one hour a week. It is not possible for a little common sense to prevail? Was this amount of use suggested by the people who complained or was this the whim of the council officials?Here we have a club which has been around for 80 years, teaching young people to play tennis. Here they are off the beaten track in nobody's way but they are charged with causing light pollution by one neighbour out of 56. The other 56, it appeared, had no problems with the use of the lights, so wasn't there a more simple solution?What if the tennis club paid for blackout curtains to be fitted to the Spackman's house? They worked in the war to stop light getting out but as a point of interest at what time of night were these lights causing a problem? The club could surely have come to an agreement with the Spackmans that the floodlights would be turned off at about 10pm. Unless there was a game in progress then the club would insist they went off at 10.30pm.Weston cannot afford to lose any sports facilities at all as we have very little to offer people as it is. The club, it appears, is in line to receive a grant of £100,000 to improve its facilities which includes the floodlighting which would solve the problem, so why didn't the magistrates give the club 12 months to get things right, or at least insist that the council try to find some solution with the club and the neighbours.I see that the council official Debbie Young, visited the Spackman's house and said she could read small print without the need of the houselights, she didn't say what she could read if the blinds were drawn which in most houses the owner would have done. I hope the club can win through all this.LAURENCE F ORME - Shrubbery Avenue, Weston