Sir, Here follows an open letter from Tenby Walled Town Residents Association to all county council cabinet members: When Pembrokeshire County Council received 62 objections to its proposed permanent order for a pedestrianisation scheme for Tenby, it knew the order could not become statutory without a public inquiry being held and this would not be possible before summer 2006. But the council were determined their plans to pedestrianise Tenby in 2005 were not to be thwarted and they had no compunction in announcing they intended to use the 2004 experimental order to repeat an identical scheme to the one they knew objections had been made and problems identified. This year the council would have had an ideal opportunity to test some of the ideas put forward and to address some of the objections it had received. It chose instead to dismiss them all out of hand. Nothing new can be learnt from repeating this 'experiment'; it is in reality an experiment with no element of experimentation. You, the members of the cabinet are being asked to confirm that the 2004 experiment be used without any modification to pedestrianise Tenby in 2005 in your next meeting on June 27. The association asks that cabinet members take the time to read the full text of the objection letters the council has received in order to appreciate the diverse and serious problems that this scheme will create, rather than rely on the brief summary on a few lines in the agenda. There is still an opportunity to try and resolve some of the difficulties identified in these letters of objection. We ask cabinet members at their meeting next Monday to grasp the nettle, to stand up for the residents of Tenby and to address their problems. The agenda for this meeting states that successive schemes took the views of the majority of respondents into account. The council has not accepted or incorporated the majority view in what you are being asked to confirm for 2005; it has imposed its own scheme. For the record, the majority view was that the scheme used in 2004 should be improved and developed in 2005 and that residents should be given freer access. To add insult to injury, the county council has delivered a circular to all properties within the walls in advance of your cabinet meeting. This letter details the scheme that will happen and says they are 'working with local representative groups within the area'... 'to improve the enjoyment of the town by residents...' This is not the case. Be in no doubt that the Tenby Walled Town Residents' Association, the group that represents the views of the people most affected, the residents who live within the walled town, are not happy with this scheme. All of TWTRA's constructive suggestions, objections and calls for dialogue have fallen on deaf ears in Haverfordwest. The scheme is of dubious legality as it denies residents the opportunity to freely load and unload at their homes and also robs them of their human right to lead a spontaneous existence and to respond to circumstances that crop up suddenly. It wastes residents' time and it devalues properties which have parking by effectively robbing them of what should be an asset. The scheme is deeply unpopular with many Tenby residents and the county council's dictatorial attitude and its contempt for council tax payers has created a feeling of real anger in the town. It is desperately late in the day, but you have the opportunity in this meeting to adopt a more sympathetic approach to the scheme.
Alistair Mackay, Secretary, TWTRA,
Sheerwater, 4 St. Julian Terrace, Tenby.