Pembrokeshire Coast National Park Authority is stuck "between a rock and a hard place" regarding the controversial Bettws Newydd, its head of Development Management Cathy Milner told a meeting of Newport Town Council.

The glass fronted house on Newport Parrog has already cost the park £17,500 in consultants' fees and legal advice. The most recent application has already attracted 57 letters of objection from all over the country.

The park's development management committee originally granted permission for the dwelling in 2006. It was subsequently found to have been built in a different place and 18 inches higher than the original plans.

The applicant applied for retrospective planning permission which was turned down by the authority in June last year.

Before serving the applicant with an enforcement notice the national park was advised to give the applicant an opportunity to modify the development to bring it in line with the 2006 application and modify the harm to amenity by an acceptable extent.

A new application, incorporating two large earth bunds obscuring the lower ground floor was submitted to the park authority this month. At present there is no information as to where the material to build the bunds is coming from or how it would get to the site.

The development management committee is set to consider this application on March 24th. If they refuse it the applicant has two options: He will either have to pull down the house and rebuild it to the 2006 permission, or he could appeal to the planning inspectorate.

If they approve it there is a strong chance that objectors will challenge it.

"Either way the scenario is not going to stop in March," said Ms Milner.

Newport town councillors said that even if the house was pulled down and rebuilt it would still be a "enormous eyesore" and possibly even more prominent, as the 2006 position is even closer to the sea.

Ms Milner said that a lot of objections compared the house to the original wooden house on the site known as Bettws Bach or Jimmy's Place. This however was not relevant as the 2006 permission had been granted.

"The problem is that we have got a house which not many people like," said Ms Milner.

"Whether we like it or not doesn't matter. There is permission for a big glass fronted house on the Parrog. The differences are so slight [between the 2006 and the existing house] we won't notice it from the beach.

"It's a big house, there is this permission, we are where we are," she said. "All this application is to remedy the harm to amenity."

Councillors also questioned how the house had got planning permission in the first place. Ms Milner admitted that the committee did not have enough information when they approved the 2006 application. She said that lessons had been learnt from the "debacle" and that the park now asks for a lot more information on planning applications.

"That information is there on every application; existing levels, future levels, height, it all has to be there or we will say 'go away'."