Housing provision, further improvements to public gardens and open spaces, and a long term plan to light Tenby’s historic town walls should form part of the town council’s priorities over the next five years, a recent discussion amongst members decided.

At a recent meeting of Tenby Town Council, the clerk Andrew Davies explained to members that, as part of their Annual Report, the previous council had agreed a range of priorities for the future, but this was a fresh opportunity for the newly elected council to review these priorities, whilst also adding future priorities over the next five years.

Clr. Laurence Blackhall said that there were some long-term ambitions identified like town wall lightings, further improvements to gardens and public open spaces, and continued support of the De Valence, stating that these were all good things for the people of Tenby, those who work here and visitors as well.

He felt the town council should resist the temptation to be negative and look at what was achievable, stating that some ideas would require help from others, with funding from different sources.

“Let’s capture ideas, identify what we want to achieve and put together funding bids,” he told his fellow members.

Clr. Mrs. Sue Lane said that as it was a newly elected council, it may initially take time to understand what they can and cannot do, feeling it would be beneficial for members to undertake a proper walkabout looking at the town and categorising what can be done quickly and what may take more time, with Clr. Paul Rapi seconding the idea.

Clr. Blackhall agreed that a walkabout was a good idea, and in addition to continuing with ideas already mentioned, he also wanted to bring the play areas on town estates forward to the table to consider how the town council could work with PCC to make drastically needed improvements to play provision.

Clr. Lynn Attewell asked who liaises with CADW in relation to the town walls, with the clerk explaining that basically the town walls are property of PCC but, as a scheduled ancient monument, there are restrictions on what can and cannot be done and everything has to be signed off by CADW first.

He said that PCC had devised a special maintenance programme, agreed by CADW, as to how they deal with things like weed growth and maintenance.

“The previous PCC officer responsible for historic buildings in the county had been very good and was making progress but she has left PCC and she has not been replaced to date,” he told members.

“Her plans had the support of CADW and the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park’s conservation officer and we were making progress. She had left an action plan for her successor but as they have yet to be appointed it is unclear as to the situation going forward.”

Clr. Tony Brown raised the matter of town wall lighting, stating that when he was last on the council, members had started looking at a phased approach starting with the Five Arches and then expanding it the whole length of the walls.

He told fellow councillors that he would like to start working on this project once again.

The clerk said CADW seemed to be okay with this idea so long as lights are not attached to the walls, whilst PCNPA conservation officer, Mr. Rob Scourfield, was also supportive of the idea.

Clr. Brown explained that, when he was last on the council he had had an initial discussion with the company LITE who estimated that the Five Arches could cost in the region of £30,000 with the whole walls coming in at around £100,000.

Clr. Dale asked if the project should not be tendered for.

The clerk explained that LITE supplied the town’s Christmas lights but have also been involved in a number of projects to light public buildings such as Edinburgh Castle.

He said that Paul from LITE had offered to look at the idea as a favour, saving the council the costs of a feasibility study, but that the project would go out to tender if progressed.

Clr. Blackhall felt that the project could also be expanded to Castle Hill and St Mary’s Church where the existing lights were showing their age.

“We can work out how we go about doing it and perhaps going even further down to the harbour,” he added.

Clr. Mrs. Tish Rossiter commented that the town’s public benches were in a ‘disgusting state’ - and not only was there need for repairs or replacements, but more were needed too.

It was explained that there had been funding secured in the EPF bid for repairing and renovating benches and the town council were engaging with PCC’s Norman Industries to assist with this work. The clerk was also aware that PCC have some 30 memorial benches ordered to roll out in town, but he was uncertain if these were for new sites or to replace older benches.

Clr. Mrs. Lane added that the EPF works to the Paragon would also create more space for memorial benches.

Clr. Dale asked what the situation was regarding memorial benches, as a relative had previously had a bench removed from a site with a bench for another person replacing it, which had caused ‘considerable upset’ - which he did not want to see happen again.

The clerk explained that the town council had not been responsible for authorising any memorial benches in the town since 2005, and this was now controlled by PCC.

“There is now a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in place whereby if a bench was beyond reasonable repair, PCC would contact the family, if known, to see if they wanted to purchase a new bench, and if not, the site would be allocated to someone else,” he said.

The clerk told members that this MoU also applied to benches provided by the town council prior to 2005 but, sadly, the town council’s record keeping of who had purchased benches prior to him taking up the post had been poor.

The Mayor, Clr. Mrs. Sam Skyrme-Blackhall said that one of the town council’s priorities must be the provision of new houses.

“All support local housing for local people and we need to ensure that we start to see the building of council houses again,” she said, adding that councillors would be meeting with PCC officers for an update on the Brynhir housing development again this month.

She said there were schemes elsewhere to use second homes council tax to, buy back council properties or set up community land trusts which could be explored.

The discussion points had been helpful in defining the way forward, Clr. Blackhall felt, with all fitting into the ethos of ‘have an idea and work on how it can be achieved’.

He said that there was a programme underway relating to places and spaces and there were already ideas for next year, which gave the town council things to plan for going forward for the next five years.