LYME Regis Town Council will resubmit an application to operate a park and ride site after proposals labelled "fundamentally unacceptable" were rejected.

The council had applied to East Devon District Council to temporarily continue a park and ride facility at Ware Cross, Sidmouth Road - but planners rejected the application.

Planning permission for the park and ride site will expire at the end of September.

At last week's (7) strategy and policy committee, councillors agreed to resubmit a full application, along with a detailed parking strategy, as suggested by East Devon planners.

In a report to councillors, deputy town clerk Mark Green suggested the council could spend up to £5,000 in order to produce the parking strategy.

Cllr Brian Larcombe said: "This is an overspill car park of the sort we now can't do without.

"We should go for a proper application and we should do it on the right grounds - £5,000 in the long term is nothing."

Deputy mayor, Cllr Michaela Ellis, insisted the council needed to "make sure that this is a permanent application" - while Cllr Daryl Turner proposed that the authority worked with Uplyme and Charmouth parish councils ahead of submitting a new application.

He said: "I think we have got to be a lot smarter if we going to get East Devon to consider any application in the future.

"I would like to see us engaging with places like Charmouth and Uplyme who have similar issues. East Devon are likely to refuse, even with a full application. We need a strategy for the town."

Cllr Derek Hallett described the rejected application as "appalling", and said there was no guarantee a new application would be successful.

Cllr Hallett said: "What we put in was appalling.

"The planning has got to be right. We may well have a job to win it - we are spending public money and we could lose."