Sir,

Alexander Pope once said that 'a little knowledge is a dangerous thing' and this is well illustrated by Carey D'Arcy's ill-conceived letter calling for the banning of dogs on the south beach. His argument seems to be based solely on his own observations made during a few days on holiday (and no doubt on his own personal prejudices). Those of us who live here and use the beach every day, 365 days a year know that:

1. There has not been a sudden increase in the numbers of dogs on Penally beach - dog owners have been driving to this beach from other areas since summer-time dog bans were introduced in Saundersfoot, Tenby and Lydstep. The arrangement of sharing the beaches between those who have dogs and those who are not comfortable with them is one that has worked well for a number of years.

2. Mr. D'Arcy admits that most owners are responsible and pick up after their dogs -what he has probably not observed, as we have, is the number of human visitors to the beach nipping to the loo in the bushes and sand dunes because there are no public loos on this end of the beach. He seems not to know, as we do, that what gets bagged and put in the bin does not always stay there because of foraging crows and seagulls and those people who think it's amusing to tip up the bins and roll the contents down the beach. He has no evidence that all of the mess he speaks of is caused by dogs or their owners.

3. This end of the beach does not have a blue flag anyway -that honour is reserved for the part from Fountains Cafe to St. Catherine's Island where dogs are banned in the summer.

4. Mr. D'Arcy makes no mention of the very real health hazard caused by visitors who leave drinks cans, plastic bags, broken glass, used nappies and other detritus - but then, by the time he gets to the beach at 5 pm, our hard-working beach cleaners have picked it all up. Perhaps if he had seen it, he would like to ban people as well?

It frightens me that, based on limited knowledge and observations Mr. D'Arcy has then taken it upon himself to contact the council and Keep Wales Tidy and try to browbeat them into granting his wish of having dogs banned from the beach!

We all have things in life that upset us about the way other people live - my personal one is inconsiderate drivers. but I don't want to ban everyone from the roads for the sins of a few. Similarly, I don't see why all dogs should be banned from the beach because a few owners don't behave responsibly and I don't see why one man's personal prejudices should be allowed to affect the freedom of choice of hundreds of local dog owners and the thousands that come on holiday here.

Name and

address supplied