A "STUBBORN" Llandeilo woman who would not take down a barn built without planning permission has been ordered to pay £1,600.

Rebecca Evans, of Ty Cefn Tregib, Ffairfach, was warned she would spend 28 days in jail if she did not pay a £1,000 fine, £500 in prosecution costs and a government surcharge of £100.

Evans elected to go to Swansea Crown Court over a charge of breaching an enforcement notice issued by Carmarthenshire county council requiring her to demolish the barn, only to plead guilty when she got there.

She denied a second charge of failing to return the land underneath the barn to agricultural use.

The pleas were accepted.

Lee Reynolds, prosecuting, said Evans, who was described in court as an engineer, already had a barn on land at Dolybont, Llandeilo, but put up another one next door.

He said Kevin Jones, a council enforcement officer, visited Dolybont on February 21, 2012 and invited Evans to apply for planning permission or remove it.

Evans wrote to the council saying she would apply for retrospective permission for the steel-framed building but never did.

Craig Jones, representing Evans, said she had now started to have the barn demolished and the roof had been removed.

Mr Jones said the the council had confirmed "in the last few days" that the status of the land had been changed to "mixed agricultural and equine use."

Judge Keith Thomas said Evans had adopted " a rather stubborn attitude" and had "dug her heels in."

Planning laws, he added, were designed to stop the countryside being "plastered" with buildings.

"You breached the order as a point of principle. You dug your heels in," he added.