A festive church tradition in Tenby could be altered in light of the recent county council initiative to partially extinguish street lamps at midnight.

Members of Tenby Town Council have been highly critical of the scheme, which has been introduced to reduce the carbon footprint across the county, but they were recently informed by Pembrokeshire County Council's head of highways and construction that the authority would not be making any changes at present to its policy of partial extinguishment of street lighting between the hours of 12 midnight and 5 am.

Town councillors had questioned elements of the scheme and informed the authority that many residents were unhappy about the blackout.

Now, according to one local councillor, the street lighting blackout will mean that the Midnight Mass service at Tenby's St. Mary's Church on Christmas Eve, will be changed to begin at 10.30 pm, breaking a long-standing tradition.

"Midnight Mass it seems is going to be moved to 10.30 pm on Christmas Eve, to make those in attendance feel a little more comfortable when leaving St. Mary's Church and returning to their homes, if their streets are affected by the street lighting extinguishment," Clr. Lawrence Blackhall informed his fellow members at Tuesday night's meeting of the town council.

"It's a real shame to see the loss of this tradition at Christmas because of this scheme, if that's the case," he continued, with his colleague Clr. Mrs. Sue Lane agreeing.

Clr. Mrs. Christine Brown suggested that it would be a good idea for a representative of the church to write to the county council to see what could be done on the matter, and recommended that the town council write to the authority, too, backing the church's views.