AN application for temporary stables for a Portland riding school has been temporarily withdrawn.

Weymouth and Portland planning committee members were expected to visit the Sweethill Road site on Wednesday morning – but it was cancelled, together with a decision on the application, while planning officers seek more information about the proposals.

The business, Portland’s only formal horse riding school, was asking permission for temporary stables and other buildings on a paddock to the south of Sweethill Road.

A report to the committee said that some buildings have already been put up on the site with horse jumps in the field. The business is asking for temporary permission for three years to help with a phased move from its old site.

The field is within an Area of Local Landscape Importance and a Heritage Coast Area.

Planning officers say the business is in the process of moving from its existing base at Watery Lane, off Weston Street, to a new site immediately to the west of where the existing temporary stables are.

The school already has planning permission for 52 stables with an office, staffroom, feed rooms, livery room and tack rooms in a courtyard layout around a central area, as well as a house on the new site.

There had been around thirty letters, both for and against the temporary permission, to the planning office.