Highlands End holiday park at Eype has been refused permission for more than 300 ground-mounted solar panels.

Dorset Council decided that they would look out of place and be 'harmful' to the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, on a site 200 metres to the west of the complex.

The planning application rejected by Dorset Council had been for 336 solar panels on 14 galvanised steel 'tables' within a fenced area of just under half a hectare, a field used for grazing. At a peak the panels could have produced 200kW of power, enough for the holiday park's needs.

A planning agent said the panels would have been able to provide power for the existing caravans, buildings and car charging points with any surplus power used to heat the swimming pool with the facility to also feed into the national grid.

Among the objectors were neighbours who claimed to allow the panels would "make a mockery" of the AONB status. Many said they were not opposed to the panels, but believed they were in the wrong location and suggested another site could be found closer to the caravans.

Dozens of letters for and against had been submitted to Dorset Council including an objection from the Dorset group of the Campaign to Protect Rural England.

Symondsbury Parish Council said that while the proposal met many objectives of sustainability the balance was that it would cause potential harm to the landscape – although the parish decision was split, with the chairman's casting vote deciding to register an objection.

The Dorset AONB team wrote to Dorset Council to say that the panels would: "result in a significant degree of conflict with the purpose of the AONB designation, as the proposal would not conserve and enhance the sensitive landscape in which it is located".

Landscape officers at the council also objected saying that the site provided a "landscape buffer" between the edge of the caravan park and the Eype Conservation Area and that the panels would "give rise to significant adverse local visual effects," from the nearest footpaths.