Sir,
Poor old Tenby - someone really has it in for you.
There have been a number of actual or provisional decisions in the last couple of years which whilst individually debatable, collectively add up to the death knell for Tenby as we have known and loved it.
We have been visitors to Tenby for nearly 40 years and after buying a holiday home in the town, decided about two years ago to move permanently. The attraction is and always has been that Tenby is not a sterile holiday theme park but busy throughout the year with those living and working in the town as well as with the summer visitors.
Recent developments include:
• Approval for a major retail complex in New Hedges which will pull all the souvenir shopping out of Tenby itself.
• Proposals for a replacement for the Cottage Hospital which will be fine for dealing with the grazed knees of visitors but not for the longer term needs of residents.
• A pedestrianisation scheme that makes it extremely difficult for those who live and work within the walls to conduct a normal life.
• 'Cafe Culture' which brings dirt and litter into the streets and promotes the out of doors drinking that every civilised town in the country is seeking to ban.
• Liberal licensing policies leading to drunkenness and vandalism.
Each of these developments is debated on its own merits, but this misses the point that as a whole they arise from an implicit vision of Tenby that is more akin to a theme park than to a vibrant and lively little town. The importance of the holiday business to Tenby is given as a justification for this viewpoint, but our own experience is that the attractiveness of Tenby as a holiday location arises from its special character as a 'real town.'
If we want to keep Tenby alive, we need to oppose the theme park way of thinking and not just its manifestations.
Douglas Fraser,
3 Lexden Terrace,
Tenby.