Tenby town councillors have defended themselves over complaints that they failed to represent the town at a meeting with Dyfed-Powys Police two weeks ago.

Last week, local resident Ken Fryer expressed his concern that not one town councillor, nor the town's two county council representatives, attended a meeting in Haverfordwest to discuss the Dyfed-Powys Police budget for 2003/04.

In reply, the Mayor, Clr. Mrs. Christine Brown, said that while it had been unfortunate, no town councillor had been able to attend due to other commitments.

However the council had a good working relationship with the local police who were aware of councillors' concerns over the policing of Tenby.

Town councillor and one of the town's two county representatives, Clr. Mickey Folland, spoke in similar vein on Tuesday night when a meeting of the town council discussed a letter on the same theme from Mrs. Julie Llama, of the Salterns Caravan park.

She, too, had attended the meeting in Haverfordwest and had been disappointed in the lack of attendance by the town's elected representatives.

"As a number of issues to be discussed during the meeting were directly linked to Tenby, I feel strongly that somebody from Tenby Town Council should have been present to represent the community," she wrote.

Mrs. Llama said that at the meeting it had been suggested that the police were finding it "extremely difficult" to deal with the "sharp increase" of drunken individuals now to be found on the streets of Tenby, especially at weekends, given the limited police resources, and it was "quite strongly felt that Tenby has brought the sharp increase in recent problems relating to anti-social behaviour upon itself."

The police had, Mrs. Llama claimed, told her to address her questions to Tenby Town Council, which she was now doing.

Clr. Folland felt it was "a great shame" to see such a letter.

"If only people would look at our diaries," he said. "I sometimes wonder how we actually find the time to go home.

"The activities we carry out are very demanding on time, and people must remember that as a town councillor it is all voluntary.

"It's a shame people don't think about what we do before laying blame."

Clr. Folland said that he, and other councillors, had spoken to Inspector Les Clarke at Tenby police station on numerous occasions.

"We are very concerned about our town and we have submitted our ideas for policing to the Police Authority," Clr. Folland continued.

"People are quick to criticise, but where are they when we hold public meetings. There was one recently to discuss the future of the De Valence Pavilion, which costs the ratepayers £45,000 a year, but that was poorly attended by townspeople.

"We are not idle by any means. What we do for the town often goes unrewarded or unnoticed, but we are doing a lot of work behind the scenes every day of the week.

Clr. Mrs. Maureen Ward said that publicans in the town did their best to police their own premises and did it well.

"It is on the streets where the main concerns are," she continued. "Tenby's lack of police officers is due to the town's low crime rate, but it only has a low crime rate because of it's lack of officers.

"Our police officers do a difficult job as best they can, but they know that there are not enough of them to arrest people because it would take officers off the streets for hours.

"Mrs. Llama has every right to put her feelings down on paper, but I would point out to her that, following the resignation of Clr. Stuart Fecci last month, we now have a vacancy on the town council for the North Ward.

"Perhaps if people would like to see what we actually do, they would like to stand."

The Mayor, Clr. Mrs. Brown, added that many of Mrs. Llama's comments related to policing.

"While I have the greatest respect for the police and what they are doing, surely policing is not our responsibility, but that of the police, " she said. "After all, is that not what policing means."

Turning to the vacant council seat mentioned by Clr. Mrs. Ward, Clr. Folland revealed that sufficient people had come forward to call for the seat to be filled by by-election rather than council co-option.

"This should be taking place within the next eight weeks," he commented.