Sir,

On Friday, October 19, this year, my wife and I embarked on our annual pilgrimage to Tenby; this year accompanied by our son, daughter-in-law and two granddaughters, who had not seen Tenby and all its delights before.

One of our great loves is to pick a bench on Harbour Beach armed with crossword, tea and sandwich from the local tea hut and sit and watch the world go by, this year with the added bonus of watching our grandchildren playing on the beach.

On walking down the steep slope to the harbour we were mortified to see all the benches stacked in a corner. The whole of the car park, including in front of the church, was taken up by boats obviously already in winter storage. The lady in the tea hut suggested we mention it to you as she had no customers.

I know this is a harbour and I don't pretend to understand the running of it, but what I do understand is that Tenby relies on tourism and I find it absolutely unbelievable that the powers that be render one of the town's loveliest spots totally inaccessible and unwelcoming to tourists upon whom the town and townspeople depend for their livelihood. We could not even find a good spot to take photos.

We asked in Tourist Information and the lady there, who is probably still laughing ('boats on the harbour - how dare they!'), seemed to think it was very early in the year to bring the boats in considering we were there for half-term and the Welsh half-term was a week later.

It's not often we have a complaint about your beautiful town - we've been coming to it for 30 years - but this is the first time our own particular 'spot' has been unavailable to us. However, see you next year - let's hope your other visitors think the same!

Ken Parr,

Lancs.