I NOTE the county council’s extensive PR efforts to talk up the masterplan for redeveloping Haverfordwest, and while I wish the residents well for having more millions poured into their town centre I cannot help but see the stark comparison to the service the council is offering my home town of Pembroke Dock.

For months now I have been complaining that the county council cannot even fulfil its statutory duty to keep the streets and pavements clean in our town centre. I have sent various e-mails and phone calls to the relevant officers and raised it a number of times in town council meetings all to no effect.

The amount of fag butts on the pavements of Dimond Street and Queen Street – our main shopping centre – is a disgrace. Yet I am told by officers the pavement is cleaned five days a week!

My wife will happily tell you that I am rubbish at cleaning my own house, but even I can see the number of times is not relevant if the quality of cleaning is poor. The pavement in Queen Street on the old nutshell shop side has moss and stones there, showing that bit has not been cleaned for many months. I could go on.

The town council has just received a letter of response to my complaints, from the head of highways and construction stating incredibly that they are happy with the current process in place for Pembroke Dock. I have offered to meet these officers to view the process but do not get any response.

The machines they use simply do not do the job properly and the only time that Dimond Street is even close to clean is when the town council’s own cleaner does it by hand.

I wonder how many Pembroke Dock people know they are paying extra for street cleaning as the town council took on a part time cleaner as they were not satisfied with the county council service.

The town council precept went up by 10% this year and the cost of this cleaner accounts for most of that.

Part of the problem is the old cobbles scheme which has disintegrated so badly and so many are missing, that they all need replacing with decent flat paving.

The streets are a total mishmash of bits of tarmac, bits of concrete and any spare materials the council can find to fill in all the missing cobbles.

What is a simple fact is that the town centre of Haverfordwest has had a complete revamp at least two times since the ‘cobbles’ were installed in Pembroke Dock. Now a third grand scheme is planned.

I am not asking for high tech glass and chrome installations nor expensive projects designed by award winning architects but just decent smooth pavements which can be cleaned properly.

The saddest thing of all is that we have two town councillors who are also county councillors and cabinet members.

Presumably they were happy to vote for the Haverfordwest improvements yet here we are in Pembroke Dock, seemingly unable to solve the problem of having the most fag butt infested town centre in Pembrokeshire.

PHIL GWYTHER

Pembroke Dock Town Council