Local councillors were given assurances this week that work would be carried out on an area of Tenby in need of an urgent ‘spruce-up’.

At a recent meeting of Tenby Town Council, members criticised Pembrokeshire County Council for a lack of overall maintenance work on Castle Hill, which was in need of a bit of TLC, highlighting the Welsh National Memorial to Prince Albert and heritage plaques which were in need of a clean, cannon plinths that required painting, and major weeding work that needed to be carried out.

At Tuesday night’s meeting of the town council the county council’s head of environment and civil contingencies, Richard Brown, who is also now the authority’s liaison link officer for Tenby, told members that he was on the case after reading the ‘strongly worded’ comments on the matter in the press.

He said that the statue and the cannons were not currently on any form of maintenance schedule, and were cleaned as and when required, while other areas of Castle Hill would also be looked at, in respect of weeding and cleaning.

“The monument is particularly poorer on one side, so that’s in hand, whilst ideally we will have to take the cannons off site temporarily to clean them,” explained Mr. Brown.

Clr. Will Rossiter also asked if two walls could also be looked at, as mortar seemed to have fallen out between the rocks and he was worried that it could become dangerous and collapse at any time.

Clr. Mrs. Caroline Thomas said that she was pleased to see the town council’s views on the condition of Castle Hill taken seriously by PCC.

“It is a very important part of the town, but I realise that you’re never going to be able to do all the maintenance work required in one go,” she said.

“We need to look after the town’s assets and not destroy them,” added Clr. Trevor Hallett.

The Mayor, Clr. Laurence Blackhall, said that the questions raised on Castle Hill at the previous meeting, were in no way a criticism of the maintenance team’s hard work.

“We realise that you are working on tight resources, so the comments were in no way a reflection of the hard work of the staff, it would just be lovely if there were more of them,” he told Mr. Brown, also explaining that one of the issues to come out of a recent walkabout of the town was the poor state of some of the railings, with Clr. Paul Rapi referring to the ones on the lower level opposite WH Smith.

Clr. Blackhall said that areas such as the Esplanade, Paragon and The Croft were particularly in need of attention, but he appreciated that this could be a ‘hugely expensive’ operation and, as such, would like to see it added to an ongoing programme of maintenance.