The removal of play equipment from part of a popular park in Tenby last week was forced upon county council officers due to health and safety issues, after a young girl cut her leg there.

Members of the town council were informed of this at their meeting on Tuesday night, when the town clerk, Mr. Andrew Davies, said that the decision had been taken to remove the equipment from the Jubilee Play Area before the bank holiday weekend, after officers from the county council carried out an inspection on the equipment following the incident.

A statement from a county council spokesperson said: "The unfortunate truth is that the play equipment in the county council area of Jubilee Park has come to the end of its life and is now a danger to its users.

"Last week, a young girl cut her leg on the equipment, which effectively sealed its fate.

"It is over 20 years old and has been repaired several times. In short, the play equipment is past its use-by date and has now been withdrawn."

The county council also said that it had no specific provision for the replacement of play equipment.

With Tenby Town Council already in the process of introducing a wheeled play park provision to the site, they are now looking into the possibility of taking over the running and maintenance of the park as a whole.

"We have limited funds as a council to replace this play equipment that has been taken away, so going down the route of setting up a Community Management Trust would enable us to access further funds to oversee such a project," the town clerk, Mr. Davies, told councillors.

Mr. Davies also said that county councillor Mike Evans had already spoken to county council leader, John Davies, and director of development, Dr. Steven Jones, who had contacted the authority's community regeneration manager, Sinead Henehan, to make the issue her top priority when she returns from holiday.

Clr. Mrs. Christine Brown said she was aware that there had been plenty of concern in the community about the future of the play park, with a 'Save the Jubilee' group on Facebook already gaining over 500 members.

"It's our duty to apologise to these people, but we were unaware that this equipment was coming to the end of its life until the county council took it away.

"The solution to take it away was the right thing to do as a child's safety is the most important thing. Hopefully, if we can move forward now as a town council in taking over the running of this park as a whole, we'll be able to inspect it much more regularly," continued Clr. Mrs. Brown.

"With the involvement of the Tenby Youth Trust committee, I'd like to encourage parents and children to give us some feedback on how they would prefer to see the park developed for the future.

"We also need to form some sort of fundraising committee to provide new play equipment and if we push on with this, hopefully we can make progress quickly," she added.

Clr. Mrs. Julie Evans said that Tenby was a community renowned for its fundraising and that she was sure people would get on board along with charity organisations like the Rotary, Round Table and Lions, to support such a community venture.