AROUND 500 people attended an exhibition in St Davids this weekend on proposals for the Glasfryn Road site.

This was the final informal public consultation into the mixed use development consisting of around 75 new homes, 40 of which would be available to local families to buy or rent affordably, and a 63 bedroom Premier Inn hotel.

The money raised by the sale of the open market houses would go towards financing a nearby swimming pool to replace the one closed by Pembrokeshire County Council in 2007.

Around 150 pieces of feedback have been submitted to the informal consultation so far. A statutory consultation will then take place before planning permission is put into Pembrokeshire Coast National Park Authority later this summer.

Premier Inn came on board with the Glasfryn project last year. As reported in last week's Western Telegraph its involvement has caused some controversy. A small protest demonstration took place during last week's consultation event and a Change.org petition has gathered nearly 1,500 signatures so far.

Opponents say that the hotel is not contributing financially to either the construction of the social housing or swimming pool.

There are also concerns that the chain hotel will damage local businesses and could lead to more chains coming to St Davids.

However the developers say that the hotel development, which will create 20 new full time jobs recruited from the St Davids Peninsular, is enabling the development. The hotel developers are paying for the planning process and the survey for the whole site as well as access and ground work for part of the site.

They also stressed that the hotel would be sympathetically designed to suit its surroundings and would only have a small restaurant, serving breakfast and light meals, as it was expected that guests would dine out during the day and evening.

They also said that the Premier Inn had a different customer base from independent accommodation and that the hotel would not compete directly with independent establishments.

The informal consultation ends at 6pm on May 31. You can give feedback online at www.glasfrynroadplans.co.uk, by e-mailing glasfrynroad@turley.co.uk or calling the consultation team on 0808 168 8296.