A COUPLE have had their efforts to go green thwarted after being told their solar panels were out of keeping with a Cotswolds village.

Roger and Emma Kenworthy spent £8,500 installing the photovoltaic panels on the front of their house in Southrop in April.

Now they been told they have three months to get rid of the panels after members of Cotswold District Council’s planning committee said they were out of character with the rest of the village.

Mrs Kenworthy stormed: "It was a pathetic decision and I feel nothing but contempt.

"They need to get real. We only have one planet and the planners showed small-minded prejudice.

"It will require a small visual adjustment to get used to the solar panels but that is a small matter compared to the good they will do by creating renewable carbon-free energy."

The couple claim they was told by CDC that they would not need planning permission but officer Colin Davies said planning application should have been made because the panels protrude more than eight inches.

At the planning meeting last Wednesday Chedworth councillor David Broad said: "I hated these panels when I first saw them and I still hate them now. They make a statement and not a very good one."

Councillor Sue Jepson said the panels had a harmful effect on the conservation area.

"What we see on the cottage absolutely ruins the street scene and destroys the idyllic rural nature of the village," she said.

Mrs Kenworthy added that she and her husband fully intend to appeal the decision and have no plans to remove them until the panels until the appeal has been dealt with.

"Sadly, the 'chocolate-box' image of the Cotswolds can loom so large in some people's minds that they do not see the wood for the trees, and realise that preserving the beauty of the Cotswolds does not have to mean being dogmatic about solar panels," she added.

"No doubt in 20 years' time it will seem utterly ludicrous that there was this opposition."