Income generated from Pembrokeshire County Council sites in Tenby should be cross subsidised to cover maintenance costs for other areas in need of upkeep, it was suggested this week, with one town councillor calling the resort a ‘cash cow’ for the local authority.

At Tuesday night’s meeting of Tenby Town Council, members met with David Astins to discuss PCC’s community delivery project, with the focus on toilet provision, playparks, and parks and green spaces within the town.

Mr. Astins explained that with around £400,000 to be cut from the authority’s budget over the next two years, the up keep of these non-statutory services formed part of discussions with community and town councils across the county to find ways of making them sustainable for the future.

“We will lose £400,000 afforded to these services over the next coupe of years, so the authority is trying to plug the gap,” he said.

“The ‘community delivery project’ is to get town and community councils thinking about what are the most important services and how to make them sustainable for the future.”

He explained that PCC had installed charging mechanisms for five of the seven public conveniences in Tenby, meaning that the North Beach and Upper Frog Street facilities came under the scope of this project. He said that the contract for the company Danfo responsible for cleaning the facilities would amount to £11,000 for the North Beach and £6,500 for the Upper Frog Street toilets per year.

Mr. Atkins said that there were 27 green spaces that were currently cut by an external contractor on behalf of PCC, 12 times per annum, at a total cost of £18,000; and that there were maintenance costs for play parks as well as inspections incurred by PCC that needed to be considered.

He admitted to councillors that if town and community councils were not willing to take on cost implications of such services from PCC, then he didn’t know right now what the answer would be.

Clr. Mrs. Tish Rossiter said that a recent article in a national newspaper had highlighted that it now cost 40 pence to use the loo in Tenby.

“It was not a good advert for us!” she remarked.

Mr. Atkins said that he appreciated that the charges were obviously not popular, but they had helped to sustain those public conveniences.

When discussing the play parks and green spaces situation, Mr. Atkins said that as they were classed as amenity areas they did not come under the same obligation for cutting such as roadside verges for safety reasons.

Clr. Mike Evans said that he felt that as PCC was responsible for a housing areas such as Heywood Court, where 70 per cent of the housing came under the authority’s jurisdiction, then they had a responsibility to look after the play park maintenance.

Similar with grass areas around the resort’s harbour, he said that Tenby Town Council had no jurisdiction on that land.

“There seems to be no correlation here with income streams from PCC. There are 60 wards in Pembrokeshire, 40 of those you get no income from,” said Clr. Evans.

“If you want to retain the income yourselves, then you need to look at charging in all car parks across the county for example.

“Another example, Castle Beach area will generate high income streams for PCC, but you’d expect Tenby Town Council to do all the work to keep the areas looking clean and tidy to make your properties and facilities look better. In isolation, that is unfair.

“Lower Park Road is in close proximity to the multi-storey car park in Tenby, which brings in funds of in excess half-a-million a year for PCC, yet you would leave the green spaces around that area looking scruffy with these proposals? That is not the right area to be looking at,” added Clr. Evans, with Clr. Mrs. Rossiter agreeing, stating that Tenby was a ‘cash cow’ for PCC.

Clr. Mrs. Sue Lane said that you couldn’t compare how many people used a toilet in say Crymych per day to one located by a beach in Tenby.

“You can’t brand us all the same across the county,” she remarked.

Deputy Mayor, Clr. Mrs. Christine Brown, said that it would be unfair to take more out of the town’s precept to cover such charges for services, as the population rises up to 60-70,000 over the summer season.

Clr. Lawrence Blackhall said that as Tenby was Pembrokeshire’s ‘premier tourist resort’ there was scope for a much ‘bigger conversation’ on assets.

“You have to look at things in the round and those areas that generate income and those that don’t, and balance it out.

“Income from sites in Tenby needs to be cross subsidised to maintain other important services such as play parks, green spaces and toilets as they are currently unsustainable.

“I think we’d happily negotiate as a town council on that basis and work together with PCC to ease budget issues - but it would not be a sustainable conversation for you to say ‘we keep what pays’ and you take what doesn’t!” Clr. Blackhall told Mr. Atkins.