Residents are trying to stop a tennis club being granted a late licence after complaining its premises are being used for drug trafficking.

Walton-on-Thames Lawn Tennis Club on Stompond Lane, Walton, applied for an extension to serve alcohol until midnight.

But residents living nearby made their reservations to the council, citing "increased noise", "car racing" and "drug trafficking".

Nora Goodman, secretary for the Walton-on-Thames Lawn Tennis Club, said: "I have never seen anything like that myself, but I have heard rumours.

"It's certainly nothing to do with us. We get high on playing tennis."

Mrs Goodman denied the complaints were anything to do with the tennis club. She said: "Most of the complaints were about noise and we don't hold noisy events. The courts close at 10.30pm. They were not complaining about us. They were complaining about people using our property in the middle of the night.

"The sports ground is shared with two other clubs the football club and the athletics club and the car park is by no means exclusive to the tennis club.

"We can't control what goes on there out of hours."

At a meeting last Tuesday, the licensing sub-committee voted to extend the licence until 11.30pm from Monday to Friday and midnight on Saturdays.

Mrs Goodman said she had written to residents to explain her point of view.

She said: "I appreciate the concerns of the residents but I have tried to make it clear that it is not the people using the courts that are the problem."

benl@london.newsquest.co.uk