Narberth has a vibrant and busy shopping centre and the town is still fortunate to have a free car park. Therefore, why shopkeepers and office staff feel they can park their vehicles all day in the main shopping streets, as well as residential streets, is baffling County Councillor Wynne Evans. "One vehicle parked all day could deter shoppers using the town," he said this week.
"An average shopper would spend about 30 minutes in town, therefore that illegally parked vehicle during the course of the working day takes up the space of 20 shoppers."
Clr. Evans claimed: "On Friday last, at 11 am, 14 vehicles belonging to the business community were parked in the Main Street. They were not loading or offloading, because at 4 pm that same day, 11 of those vehicles had not moved.
"I am appealing for common sense here and want to encourage the owners of town centre business shops and offices and their staff to park legally in our free car park," he added.
When contacted by the Observer, a spokesman for Narberth Chamber of Trade said: "We are happy to endorse Clr. Wynne Evans's observations and would hope that active support would come from the Narberth Neighbourhood Policing Team to discourage 'long term' parking by employers and employees in the legal short term parking areas of the town, thus allowing our visitors and customers the freedom to 'park and shop' at our friendly town. It is after all in the businesses interest, one would have thought, to encourage this.
"Our message continues to be 'park with consideration to each other - before being forced to so do."