Tenby Town Council is to liaise with traders to determine the necessity of a trade refuse collection in the town on a Wednesday. Following concerns expressed over Pembrokeshire County Council's decision to halt the regular Wednesday trade refuse collection service in Tenby, the authority's head of environmental services, Mr. Barrie Davies, was invited to meet with councillors and traders last week to discuss the matter. A report of that meeting was brought before the town council at their meeting on Tuesday. In it, it said how Mr. Davies had explained that there had been a review of trade waste by the county council in recent years following Government audits which indicated that trade waste collection was being subsidised to the tune of nearly £250,000 a year, and therefore it was no longer viable to bring a large refuse lorry into the town on a Wednesday to deal with trade waste unless the costs could be recovered. The collections had therefore been revised to coincide with domestic waste collections on a Monday and Friday, but however, there would still be the offer of a waste collection on a Wednesday at a charge of £29.60, plus VAT, per collection. The report went on to say how Mr. Andy Elaway, of Pipers Restaurant, was unhappy at the timing of notification of the new system, with his business being informed just before the Bank Holiday that the Wednesday collection would be stopping that week. It was also argued that some businesses considered the Wednesday pick-up to be their 'once a week' collection. Clerk to the town council, Mr. Andrew Davies, also indicated at the meeting that he had already experienced calls to his office about 'fly-tipping' of trade waste around litter bins. The local authority's head of environmental services said he understood and accepted the concerns being raised, but felt that the authority needed a greater understanding of the demand for a Wednesday collection in the town to be able to fully review the service provision. After considering the report, councillors agreed that they would liaise with the town's traders to identify those who required a Wednesday collection, as well as Monday and Friday ones, and would feed the information back to the county council.
