Sir,

I was born and bred in Pembroke and have always loved the town and would want to live nowhere else. Over the past few years, developments and changes to this beautiful town have taken place, without consultation with local people and have been extremely disheartening and unwelcome. I have spoken to many local people about these changes and have learned that I am not the only one who feels they are derogatory to the town and have severely disfigured many, once beautiful natural features of our environment.

These man-generated changes have in no way improved, but have turned natural features into unattractive sites that now need costly management to maintain. For example, those dreadful reed beds and islands on the Mill Pond and that so-called Decoy Pond. The reed beds are unsightly, attract all kinds of rubbish and serve no other purpose than to act as man-made litter retainers. The green slime on the decoy pond was so thick and disgusting a few weeks ago that the birds were walking on top of it.

The Millpond was a natural wildlife environment before all of these unnecessary and unsightly schemes were undertaken. I understand that these ventures were grant aided to the tune of £100,000! This shows little forethought by those who provided the funding and obviously no monitoring and evaluation afterwards. It should never have been allowed to happen!

As for that deep gorge created across The Commons to alter the course of a pretty little stream that children used to catch sticklebacks in... Whose ill thought out idea was that? The fields that children used to play in are now traversed by a steep-sided water channel and the recreation fields are now unsafe for any child to play, whether accompanied or not.

The Commons fields are kept in a tidy condition, but the banks of this water chasm seems to have been planted with a multitude of very tall, ugly plants that grow totally out of control and clog up the water course, thus assisting flooding in an area already prone to the same.

It has already been proven that the construction of this watercourse has in no way lessened the flooding situation, in fact with all the additional plant debris blocking the sluice grill at the Millpond end, it imposes a far greater threat and must cost a great deal in labour costs.

Also, the fact that PCC are proposing to sell-off one of the town's listed ancient monuments just beggars belief! I propose that a system of public consultation with regard to any such future schemes or alterations to our town should be set up via the Town Council. The townsfolk should be kept informed and given the chance to comment and discuss options. Wholehearted public support is vital to such issues.

The Pembroke Watchman