Members of the public and businesses that have been affected or had cause to complain about illicit ‘street trading’ in Tenby have been urged to write to Pembrokeshire County Council’s head of street care with examples of ‘public nuisance’ behaviour they may have encountered, as local councillors continue their campaign to see a byelaw introduced for the resort to clampdown on unauthorised activity on the town’s streets.

Town councillors and county councillor Michael Williams, who represents the Tenby North, have long campaigned and urged PCC to hold a comprehensive review of ‘street trading’ matters in Tenby, with Clr. Williams, most recently hitting out at the authority for their failure to once again tackle ‘unauthorised’ activity in the historic town once again this summer.

Writing to PCC’s head of legal services, Claire Incledon, Clr. Williams said that the situation was now ‘considerably worse’ than previously, with footpaths and the highway being obstructed by street traders, stating that it was his understanding that a stop would have been brought to this form of trading by now with the implementation of new ‘bye laws’.

“The impression given of this historic town is frankly appalling. The entire impression does not reflect the quality tourism that visitors seek these days, and that most of those who pay very high business rates strive to offer, and it is the responsibility of the county council to address this decline in standards. Thus far it has totally failed!” said Clr. Williams back in the summer.

Following on from a recent meeting held on October 31 to discuss service providers and street traders, an update was given to members of Tenby Town Council at their meeting on Tuesday night by PCC’s head of street care, Marc Owen.

“As discussed, street traders are covered under our current powers, however, service providers are not,” he wrote.

“If ‘traders’ are selling or offering for sale goods or articles, then they should either fall within our street trading consent system or they are pedlars - and therefore the Police’s problem. Pedlars ought to move around and take their wares to their customers, not set up a pitch.”

Mr. Owen explained that as the likes of ‘hair braiders and Henna tattooists’ don’t ‘sell’ anything, and offer a ‘service’, they don’t appear to fall within the definition of ‘street trading’ for the purposes of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1982 - which means that they don’t fall within the current authorisation scheme, whereas prior to 2009 they would have been pedlars and therefore an issue for the Police to deal with.

Following the EU Services Directive and with the implementation of the Provision of Services Regulations, the Pedlar’s Act was amended to delete ‘or selling or offering for sale his skill in handicraft’ - thereby removing traders who are performing a service from the definition of pedlar.

Apparently in 2009, when selling wasn’t considered to fall within the remit of the EU services directive, it was felt that the Pedlars Act was in contravention of the directive and so they deleted that part.

“In 2010, Member States then agreed that the retail sale of goods is generally a service activity within the scope of the directive. However, very little appears to have yet been done to sort out the myriad legislation which appears could be contrary to the directive/regulations and they didn’t change the definition of pedlar back or repeal the Pedlars Act entirely. Therefore we have this situation where there is no authorisation scheme or obvious means of controlling ‘service providers’ on the streets,” he continued.

Mr. Owen went on to explain that the Provision of Services Regulations states of its conditions that the need for an authorisation scheme is justified by an overriding reason relating to the ‘public interest’.

“The public interest could be public security, public health, consumer protection, protection of the environment and road safety, but definitely cannot involve an assessment of the current or potential economic effects of the activity.

“A byelaw under s. 2 of the Local Govt Byelaws (Wales) Act 2012 is a possibility, but bringing it in and whatever consent scheme is behind it would have to comply with the regs.

“The government consultation on Street Trading and Pedlar laws in 2011 came to the conclusion that pedlars in general should not be regulated at all - that the grounds for justifying the existence of an authorisation scheme are more limited for temporary traders than for established traders; that adequate justification would need to be made out under the Provision of Services regs and in their view that could only be made out on genuine public safety grounds where a local authority is able to show evidence for this justification.

“Basically we cannot ban these ‘service providers’ on economic grounds. Possibly we cannot ban them at all. We need to explore the problems they raise and whether on those grounds we can justify any kind of interference.

“If we can, we need to consider what the objective is and what minimum interference could attain that objective. Therefore, to conclude, we are requesting that you submit evidence to me so the authority can review, please be mindful of the above and The Public Interest conditions.

“I would note that that this is just the beginning of the process, i.e. this is merely about obtaining sufficient evidence to be able to highlight a problem to which there may be potential solutions,” he added, requesting that all evidence is submitted to [email protected] by no later than December 14.

When discussing the matter, Clr. Laurence Blackhall reiterated that nobody had ever mentioned about making ‘economic restrictions’ for these ‘street traders’ in their quest to introduce a byelaw, and it was merely a case of looking after the town.

“It is about the integrity and the look of the town, as during the summer period it feels like some kind of free market or circus has hit Tenby, with these street traders blocking the way on footpaths etc, and making it difficult for emergency services to pass through, with their unauthorised stalls in the way.

“There is enough evidence of them causing public nuisance, with members of the public unable to sit on a bench, accessing a shop or business, unable to walk on the pavement, causing an obstruction at the Five Arches landmark, or whatever example people can provide, to get up to 50, or 150 letters to the county council on such issues.

“I’d issue a real plea to members of the public and business owners in Tenby to write to PCC and copy us in and put a stop to this.

“Then we can set up a meeting and a clear objective and time line for introducing a byelaw, as there is clearly enough evidence to tackle this on the grounds of public nuisance,” he continued.

Clr. Mrs. Tish Rossiter said that she was keen to know if these ‘service providers’ who worked with children had been DBS checked, and whether the cash in hand that they took was passed through HM Revenue and Customs.

The Mayor, Clr. Mrs. Sue Lane, said that the town council had been trying to fight this matter for over 20 years and it was proving detrimental to businesses struggling in the town who were expected to pay high business rates.

Councillors urged members of the public to email Marc Owen PCC’s head of street care at: [email protected] by December 14 (copying in the clerk to the town council: [email protected]) with any examples of unauthorised ‘street traders’ causing a public nuisance.

Written submissions can be sent to Mr. Owen, c/o street care department, at County Hall, Haverfordwest, SA61 1TP.