Tenby’s Mayor and fellow members of the town council are to outline their views on the seaside town at a seminar on the future of the National Park next week.

In recent correspondence sent to Tenby Town Council, Pembrokeshire Coast National Park Authority’s chief executive Tegryn Jones said that, like many organisations, PCNPA had faced a ‘challenging year’ responding to and dealing with the impact of the Coronavirus pandemic.

“The Authority is now looking to the future and putting a call to city, town and community councils to feed back on their priorities for the Authority and their vision for the National Park,” he stated.

“The role of the Authority is to look after the Park’s landscape, cultural heritage and wildlife, and help everyone to access and enjoy it and to support the people and businesses that call it home.”

Discussing matters to outline to PCNPA at a recent meeting of the town council, Clr. Mike Evans told his fellow councillors that he would be involved in the consultation as a PCNPA member, highlighting that the future direction of the park was ‘vitally important’ to Tenby.

Clr. Evans said that in 1975, due to its great architectural value, it was decided to include Tenby in the Park boundaries, making it the largest town in any National Park in Britain.

He said that he believed being in the Park ‘enriches’ Tenby but PCNPA must realise that it must be a joint venture.

The biggest challenge he felt the Park faced was housing for local people, stating that if PCNPA doesn’t change its focus then local people will no longer live in Tenby.

“It is vital that PCNPA understand that being in the Park has to work for Tenby and its residents,” remarked Clr. Evans, suggesting that, if necessary, the town council should buy in expertise to help press the argument to PCNPA that, whilst Pembrokeshire and Tenby is beautiful, there are lots of pressure on locals who live here.

Clr. Laurence Blackhall echoed Clr. Evans’ comments, adding that while the town council can be supportive of PCNPA, “they must work for us too”.

He noted that Mr. Jones’ correspondence talked about tourism, landscape, culture and wildlife, but only refers to businesses and residents at the end.

“The town council needs to make sure that they are not at the bottom of the list of priorities. We can only maintain Tenby’s cultural heritage if we can continue to live here,” he said, agreeing to attend the seminar along with the Mayor, and town clerk.

With the virtual seminar for councils taking place on July 13; there is also a survey on the PCNPA website ‘Have your say on a new National Park Vision - Pembrokeshire Coast National Park, which will run until Friday, July 16.