LYME Regis town councillors found themselves in a jam over the Strawberry Field project again this week.

Three leading members of the council's planning committee were unable to answer a key question about the controversial planning application.

Planning committee chairman Michaela Ellis, vice-chairman Spencer Hogg and mayor Barbara Austin all had no answer when the News asked why the committee appeared to have double standards over planning applications where the Strawberry Field project was concerned.

At a meeting of West Dorset District Council's planning committee last week, Lyme Regis Town Council objected to putting up a police communication mast at the golf club in Timber Hill. Its grounds were that it was "outside the defined development boundary and in a designated area of outstanding natural beauty".

But this week, all three councillors could not say why the same objections did not apply to the Strawberry Field planning application. The proposed sports complex and clubhouse with floodlighting on land owned by the town council is within the same area of outstanding natural beauty and outside the same development boundary as the mast to which they objected.

Chairman of the town council's planning committee Coun Ellis told the News she did not think she should be the one to answer the question.

Committee vice-chairman Coun Hogg, said: "You've put your finger on a contradiction." He suggested the mayor would be able to answer.

The mayor Coun Austin said the chairman of the planning committee Coun Ellis should be the one to answer the question.

Meanwhile, parish councillors in Uplyme have called for the application to be called-in for independent inspection by the government amid fears it will not get a fair hearing before district council planners, two of whom are Lyme Regis town councillors.