Tenby’s floral beds could be cut down due to financial constraints place upon gardening maintenance and upkeep in local towns.

Speaking at Tuesday night’s meeting of Tenby town council, the Mayor, Clr. Mrs. Sue Lane, also chair of Tenby In Bloom, told her fellow members that they were considering cutting back on flower beds in certain gardens around the town to replace them with boxes.

“First impressions are vital to our economy in Tenby, and standards are high, but unfortunately the financial responsibility has fallen onto the town council, and if we don’t pay for the plants and the upkeep, then we won’t have any floral displays.

“It’s not the cost of the flowers so much, but the cost of watering them now. Pembrokeshire County Council are charging £18 an hour for them to water the gardens for us - their own gardens!” she continued.

Clr. Mrs. Lane tanked organisations such as the Free Masons for funding flowers for the War Memorial, but stated that the money isn’t there to keep all the gardens across the resort as they have been in the past.

“We need a meeting with the gardeners and the Tenby in Bloom committee to conduct a walkabout, and see where we can cut down the size of the flower beds in some gardens, and perhaps take some bed away here and there and put in boxes,” she continued.

“We want to keep the floral standards up - but we need to have a real look at how we’re doing that going forward, so we have a plan in place for next year.

Clr. Mrs. Lane also stated that it would cost in the region of £3,000 to replace a rotten fence that has blown down at Southcliff Gardens.

“That’s got to be done before the summer, and Tenby in Bloom can pay for it out of their budget, but it seems like an awful lot of money when it’s really PCC’s responsibility,” added Clr. Lane, recommending that a ‘gardens committee’ now be set up to hold fortnightly meetings.

Tenby’s ‘golden sands’ are in danger of becoming non-existent if measures aren’t put in place to alleviate the matter, a local councillor claimed this week.

On a discussion on sand dredging at Tuesday night’s meeting of the town council, Clr. Paul Rapi told his colleagues that a plan of action was urgently needed for the South Beach as it now practically had no sand on it.

“Our beaches are dreadful at this moment in time, at this rate we’re not going to have golden sands, as the South Beach has got no sand on it, with the pebbles underneath now showing up!” he said.

“We need to put the groynes back in! Fifteen years ago we were shown a picture of what could happen in 50 years time, similar to the flooding hundreds of years ago when the tide went all the way over to St Florence!

“In the last five years, I’ve never seen a change in the weather like it, and on that beach. The golf course is getting shorter and shorter too - we need the groynes back,” continued Clr. Rapi.

Clr. Laurence Blackhall thanked the harbourmaster, Pembrokeshire County Council and the harbour users for the initial process of getting some dredging done at Tenby’s harbour area recently, to alleviate some of the issues experienced by boats travelling in and out of the channel by the North Beach, but admitted that a long term plan was much needed.

“Two days of south easterly wind has already seen the sand moving again around that area - so we need a long term plan in place for dredging to make sure access is maintained for boats in the harbour.

“We don’t want to be in the same situation again next year, asking if there is a plan in place,” he added, suggesting that the town council facilitate a meeting with PCC representatives and harbour users.

PCC recently stated that the dredging operation at Tenby Harbour that involved the removal of 1,500 tonnes of sand had been ‘a success’ with the work being carried out under a Marine Licence issued by the Natural Resources Wales.