Sir,

It was interesting to read in last week's Observer the concerns expressed by local councillors about the loss of hotels in the resort. This issue, along with the lack of affordable housing in the town, are clearly the two most important problems facing Tenby today. The town's elected representatives are to applauded for speaking out on both of these issues.

Tenby currently finds itself in a unique situation where action could be taken to ease and partially solve both of these problems. The site of the former Royal Gatehouse Hotel could be redeveloped as a luxury five-star hotel. This would provide a solution to the lack of quality hotel beds in the town, encourage high value tourism and provide local employment and training opportunities for our young people. High value tourist developments are clearly needed in this area.

Recent developments at Lydstep, Narberth and Bluestone clearly show how successful such developments can be. The worst possible development on this site would be luxury flats that would be purchased as second homes by outsiders who would only use them for a few weeks every year. This contributes little or nothing to the economy of Tenby. We have already seen this with the mansion house development on Narberth Road.

The first stop in solving the housing problem in Tenby would be to develop the old cottage hospital site as affordable housing. The local council or housing association developing the site and providing properties for rental could achieve this. An alternative route would be for a private developer to be allowed to build a mix of one and two bedroom starter houses for sale to local people.

What we need from our local elected representatives is strong leadership and a clear commitment to overcome the main problems facing Tenby. Tenby council in particular needs to make its position clear to both the elected and unelected representatives of the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park Authority. It is after all that authority that will make the key decisions affecting Tenby's future, not the town council. The opportunity to shape Tenby's future by developing these two important sites is an opportunity that only appears once in a lifetime. Let's not see the opportunity go to waste.

Mr Neil Westerman,

Kilgetty.