TENNIS players are angry over a council decision to turn courts they have used for 30 years into football pitches.

People who use the all-weather courts in Hove Park were told five weeks ago of the plan to resurface nearly half the courts to make them exclusively suitable for five-a-side football.

They voiced their feelings at Brighton and Hove City Council’s meeting on Thursday.

Neil Dickson, of Hove Park Tennis Alliance, said: “Our view is that we are being cast aside and there is a feeling of political will to see the demise of tennis at the expense of other sports, perhaps due to the misconception that we must all be able to pay at a private club.

“However nothing could be further from the truth.

“We are a real diverse group, the whole ethos of park’s league tennis set up over 60 years ago was to promote players from different socio-economic groups.”

He said they had been sharing the surface with football clubs “quite happily” for 27 years.

He said: “They use it in the winter under floodlights and then it is handed over to tennis in the summer when demand for our sport is high and football has the whole use of the park to set up training or five-a-side games.”

Five of the 12 courts, which are covered in artificial grass, are coming to the end of their life and need replacing.

The council has decided to replace the surface with one made from recycled tyres which would make them unsuitable as a surface for tennis.

The project will be funded by Section 106 contributions – money paid by developers as part of planning arrangements – which the council says can only be used for new projects, not the replacement of existing facilities.

The tennis players dispute this interpretation of the rules.

Mr Dickson also said a “sporadic” approach to collecting fees from tennis clubs was behind a disparity of income between tennis and football players.

The tennis alliance is requesting that an all-weather surface suitable for all sports be laid instead.

Last month Mark Sessions, chairman of Hove Park Colts Football Club, said: “Our team is struggling to find enough places to train. We are dotted around the area trying to find suitable places and I run 15 teams.

“My understanding is that Section 106 money has to be used for enhancement and that replacement is not an option, so it can either become a 3G pitch or there are not many other options to develop the courts.

“New pitches would have long-term benefits to the local community.”

The matter was referred to the environment, transport and sustainability committee which meets next in January.