Residents at the Paddock in Penally who have a long history of problems with the ongoing development matters leaving their roads and pavements in a poor state of repair and not fit for adoption by the local authority have been ignored the village’s county councillor has claimed.

County councillor Jon Preston who represents the Penally ward said that villagers have been ignored by PCC?after raising legitimate concerns over a private developer excavating an unadopted road at the junction outside of the Paddock Inn without evidence of the formal consent of the landowner.

“This was first brought to my attention by the new proprietor of the Paddock Inn who had witnessed the barricades going up and the diggers cutting a gully off the main C3184 Penally Village Road and into the Paddock private estate last Friday morning,” explained Clr. Preston.

“When I initially contacted PCC I was informed that ‘We have no record of a road closure at this location’.

“This was obviously a great concern to me, that such a high profile and disruptive excavation operating a traffic control system did not appear to be on the local Authority’s radar!”

After persevering some more with the matter Clr. Preston said that he was ‘quite dismissively informed’ that PCC’s role ‘is to manage the adopted highway’ with the Authority stating - ‘Any works in private land we do not have enforcement powers over. You may wish to contact Welsh Water as they would have given consent to connect into their manhole’.

“As the locally elected member, my role is not to take on the work that our paid officers should be carrying out to protect our communities and small businesses from this type of breach,” continued Clr. Preston.

“As we approach one of the busiest bank holidays of the season unauthorised and disruptive work was being carried out right outside the newly established business at the Paddock Inn.”

The work being carried out is in order to connect the foul water outlet from the new Penally Grange development into the main sewer pipe at the Paddock.

“Consent for this has previously been granted under a ‘street works licence’ in line with the original planning application, however the licence does not provide the licensee with dispensation for other permissions that may be required i.e. that of the landowner,” he explained.

“Due to the apparent inability of the County Council enforcing any action on the contractor I had to put it to the local authority that we were minded to launch a high-profile media campaign and legal action unless something was done.

“Following that PCC confirmed that they would contact Welsh Water to resolve the matter.

“The issue appears to have stemmed from the highway status of The Paddock. PCC have confirmed that they are aware that The Paddock is not an adopted highway, however, this status was totally overlooked which led to the contactors believing that they could connect to the sewer at The Paddock.

“Following a quite long winded and frustrating exchange with officers at Pembrokeshire County Council the contractors ceased working and removed all their equipment on Wednesday afternoon, five days after I first raised it with PCC,”?added Clr. Preston.