As P. G. Wodehouse’s beloved Bertie Wooster admitted, the deep darkness of the countryside gave him the ‘rural jitters’ whenever he left London.

And neighbours of David and Victoria Beckham are suggesting they may feel the same because of their plans to install ‘Blackpool-style’ lighting on their £12million Cotswolds estate.

Amid wider tensions over the invasion of the area by celebrities, popstars, broadcasters, models and footballers like David, the couple’s latest planning application – apparently their 32nd so far – has caused a stir.

In fact one irate local believes that their proposals to use ‘obtrusive’ LED festoon lamps around their man-made lake show they really ‘want to live in suburbia’ not the countryside. 

The application to install the kind of lighting seen at music festivals has been branded ‘more akin to Miami’ – where David and Victoria have a £60million mansion – than Great Tew in Oxfordshire.

In a long letter of objection, James Worthington, a thorn in the side of the Beckhams on planning matters, believes the proposal will pollute the skies with LED lighting that would damage ‘the intrinsically dark landscapes’ of the Cotswolds and harm local wildlife including bats.

‘What is proposed is more akin to Miami or Florida NOT GREAT TEW’, he wrote  adding: ‘Spotlights, is this really Great Tew or have I mistaken this area for Blackpool. 

‘It would appear the applicants can and do anything they want simply because they appear to think they can’.

David and David Beckham’s extraordinary Cotswolds estate where a man-made lake may soon have LED lights around it in a planning application that has upset locals

David and Victoria Beckham have embraced and love rural life, keeping animals, planting tress and growing food

More widely, Mr Worthington claims the Beckhams have been ‘drip feeding’ more than 30 separate applications through West Oxfordshire Council’s planning department. 

Their proposed new lighting will apparently run along a bridge over the lake, but Mr Worthington claims that he was not aware of any bridge there. 

‘Festooned lighting hanging along a ‘proposed bridge’, yet where are the applications indicating the installation of this bridge or has it already been built?’, he said.

Suggesting the Beckhams are not suited to country life, he added: ‘I said in other objections, if the applicants want to live in suburbia, then why come to an area like Great Tew. What about the poor foraging and commuting bats… have the Council now decided wildlife is not in their remit’.

The lighting battle is the latish skirmish with the locals for David and Victoria.

While their estate already has a football pitch, swimming pool and other amenities, the couple have run into opposition over a number of improvements to their estate including trees and a new driveway.

The Beckhams are clear that the lighting plan will enhance the pond and strengthen ecological standards at their home.

The former England captain and his Spice Girl wife have also lodged a ‘landscape maintenance plan’ that makes clear that the works would create a ‘hibernaculum on impermeable ground’ that would be a haven for wildlife amphibians, bats and insects, protecting them over winter.

West Oxfordshire Council are yet to to decide on the application.

The Daily Mail has contacted David and Victoria’s representative for comment. 

The pair retreat to the converted barn (pictured) in the Cotswolds at weekends from their £25 million West London mansion

David and Victoria’s Cotswolds home has been a comfort amid tumultuous times.

They have suffered a recent and very public split with their eldest son Brooklyn, who accused his bereft parents of being ‘controlling’.

Brooklyn said they were estranged out his choice because he is ‘standing up for himself for the first time in my life’.

He even accused Victoria of wrecking his wedding reception after he married heiress Nicola Peltz.

‘In front of our 500 wedding guests Marc Anthony [the American singer] called me to the stage, where in the schedule was planned to be my romantic dance with my wife but instead my mum was waiting to dance with me’, he said. 

David and Victoria Beckham bought their Cotswolds farmhouse near Chipping Norton in 2016 for just over £6million.

They have spent years developing it and it is worth at least double what they paid for it.

Mr Beckham has even bonded with King Charles over his love of rural life and the former Manchester United and Real Madrid winger is particularly proud of his farmhouse and its grounds.

‘It makes me feel as if I’ve done a good job as a father and that I did the right thing in wanting us to have a house here’, he said last year. 

Speaking to Country Life, of which he said he was an avid reader, he said: ‘I knew that, once I had the country house, my love of the countryside would grow, but I didn’t realise how much it would, actually.

‘What changed things for us — as it did for so many other people — was the covid lockdown in 2020. I can remember feeling so lucky to have a place like this then. We based ourselves here and, when it got to the stage when only one family member was allowed to go to do the food shopping, I said to Victoria: ‘Why don’t we grow everything here? Why don’t we have chickens?’ And that’s how it all started’.

He added: ‘I wanted my own carrots and eggs and to grow flowers that we could cut to have in the house, so I planned out my vegetable garden and the chicken area.’

David says he is ‘obsessed’ with trees. He planted an oak on an island in the artificial lake at the centre of his latest planning row.

He has also enjoyed baking and making jams from fruit he grows. He also has bee hives and handed one of his prized jars of honey to the King.

In January David and Victoria won their battle with neighbours over plans to build a new road to their £12million Cotswolds home.

It means they no longer have to share access with the crowds that flock to nearby Soho Farmhouse.

Despite ‘strong objections’ from locals, the couple – in the latest in a long line of unpopular planning applications at their residence – were given the go ahead to turn an agricultural track into a tarmac-laid access route to their Maplewood Barn home early in 2026.

Months of back and forth saw at least one of their neighbours calming the bid must be stopped because it would affect ramblers who should be ‘undisturbed by giant SUV’s lumbering up and down’.

Currently the Beckham’s mansion near Great Tew has a single lane cul-de-sac access, which also serves as the only way for visitors to drive to Soho Farmhouse; the nearby retreat is billed as a ‘rural escape’.

The luxury establishment charges members £250 a month to enjoy the pools, health club and range of country pursuits on offer – including clay pigeon shooting.

During the summer months the rich and famous come in their droves to relax and network.

But their cars were all filtered down the same – and currently only – road that serves the Beckhams’ own private retreat. 

In documents to support their application, the couple said their existing access suffered from ‘unsafe’ levels of traffic. 

But the plans were hit with backlash from well-healed locals, Joan Lane, who lives in Great Tew, said: ‘I must strongly object to this proposal.

‘The house already has gone perfectly serviceable access road so why is another stretch of tarmac laid through the woods deemed a good idea.

‘Ramblers use the lane and they should be left undisturbed by giant SUVs lumbering up and down. Please do not allow this application.’

In planning documents, a representative of the Beckhams described it as a ‘modest, sensitively designed conversion’.

They argued it would ‘modestly upgrade the existing crossover and gates at Ledwell Lane for safe residential use’.

The statement added: ‘The works respond to operational, safety, and amenity needs, while being carefully designed to conserve the rural, heritage and landscape character of the area.’