PROTESTERS opposing the potential planning application for a Premier Inn in St Davids have called a meeting to discuss the next step after a local land trust removed its name from a joint application.

A statement from No to Premier Inn (NoPI) said the St David’s Peninsula Community Land Trust (CLT) had “agreed to take the CLT’s name off the current joint planning application for Premier Inn and housing on Glasfryn Road”.

This has led to the resignation of one board member, county councillor David Lloyd, who told the Western Telegraph he had felt “forced” into this course of action.

Now the whole future of the project is up in the air.

A NoPI statement added that 24 members of the CLT had signed an open letter last month calling for a special general meeting to discuss withdrawing from the joint planning application, putting place measures to ensure the CLT adheres to its constitution and not to enter into further negotiations until members were ratified at an AGM.

“Our main aim is to stop a Premier Inn, or any big national chain hotel, being built in St Davids. It would undermine small local businesses and irreparably damage the distinctive character of this special and historic city and its landscape.

“We want to reassure you that the CLT’s withdrawal from the current planning application doesn’t mean that affordable housing cannot, or will not, be built on the land,” it adds.

However, this is disputed by those in favour of the plan, the Yes to Premier Inn St Davids group, which states: “Pembrokeshire Housing is still an applicant with Premier Inn, but if Premier Inn do not buy the land and an independent developer does, there could be housing but not the affordable local housing with a swimming pool we all want.

"The NoPI group has only succeeded u removing the CLT the very organisation set up to provide affordable housing.”

Similar fears were previously expressed by Cllr Lloyd when he was a CLT board member, stating earlier this month: “The consequences of the CLT not proceeding with a joint application with Premier Inn would be

(i) No match-funding for the swimming pool, which would mean it would never be built;

(ii) A real likelihood of no affordable housing for purchase for local people;

(iii) A potential reduction in homes for rent for local people from 38 to as few as 20;

(iv) The loss of homes for local people in which to raise families to replace those lost to second homes and holiday homes, which in turn would put pressure on the future viability of Ysgol Dewi Sant;

(v) The loss of 20 all-year-round jobs that would have partly addressed the 50 jobs lost in recent years at St Davids Assemblies.

“Premier Inn offered to meet all necessary site investigation costs relating to the CLT’s housing development as well as pay for the CLT’s planning application, a total of £100,000, enabling the CLT to at last proceed to making a planning application. The CLT Board took a pragmatic decision to accept this help, which is now the subject of such controversy in the community.”

CLT board chairman Bill Preece said: “The planning application is stalled because the other potential applicants, Pembrokeshire Housing and Swangate, have got to decide if they are going forward.”

Mr Preece added it had been quite a difficult time and the board were disappointed at the loss of Cllr Lloyd but hoped issues could be resolved at September’s AGM.

The NoPI group has arranged a meeting at St David’s Rugby Club on Monday, July 31, 7pm, to consider “tactics going forward”.