A woman has agreed to pull down stables she built illegally at a downland beauty spot.

Louise St John-Poulton, 26, accepted the demolition after being fined £100 with £100 costs by Brighton magistrates.

She admitted two charges of breaching an enforcement order from Brighton and Hove Council.

The order required her to demolish the stables and sand school she had built in an area of outstanding natural beauty on the Downs at Rottingdean.

The court heard St John-Poulton, of Lewes Crescent, Brighton, had started to take down the wooden stables after the council warned it would hire its own contractors to do the work.

The case has come before the courts 14 times and cost the council £2,500 to date.

Len Batten, prosecuting for the council, told the court local people had complained when work started on the stables in Whiteway Lane in July 1997. Planning permission had not been granted.

Council officers advised St John-Poulton to stop the work and she gave verbal assurances she would.

But the work was completed and in October that year a sand school and jumping area were excavated.

In November the council's planning committee issued an enforcement order requiring her to remove the stable block, which had grown to house eight horses, and to restore the land.

St John-Poulton appealed but was turned down by a Government inspector and in July 1998 she was given 12 months to comply with the order.

Mr Batten said: "She showed no signs of complying with the notice. She said she had no money and nowhere for the horses to go.

"She said she would not mind going to jail for failing to comply."

Steve Wedd, defending, said horses were St John-Poulton's hobby and she kept five at the stables.

He said it was cold in the winter at the top of the Downs and she had erected the stables to give her horses shelter.

He said she regretted the matter coming to court and was now complying with the order. The work would be finished within two weeks.

He said St John-Poulton, who now lives rent-free with a friend and claims income support for herself and her child, had no assets and the horses were not worth any money.