A Tenby county councillor has warned members of the town council to be prepared for ‘tougher’ times to come as further budget cuts are planned to hit services across the county over the next four years.

Speaking at a meeting of Tenby Town Council on Tuesday night, Clr. Michael Williams, who represents the Tenby North ward on Pembrokeshire County Council, told members that things are going to get even tougher over the next few years, with more financial cuts to be implemented across the board, with the focus on protecting core services such as education, social services and highways.

Clr. Williams said that he and Clr. Paul Rapi attended a PCC members seminar on Friday to discuss council budgets, and came out of discussions feeling ‘profoundly depressed and extremely worried’.

“It was absolutely disastrous, and we nearly rang the Samaritans after we left the meeting!” he remarked.

“If you thought the problems would ease after five years of cuts, then I’m afraid things are about to get even tougher over the next four years, so I want you to be aware of that.

“Financially, the situation is extremely bad, and the cuts are going to be far tougher than we’ve seen before, with a further 20 per cent of cuts needing to be implemented again over the next few years.”

Clr. Williams stated that reductions of £52.2m had been made in the last five years, with another £40.4m anticipated over the next four years

“That’s a total of £92.6m, a vast figure, which is frightening!” he continued.

Clr. Williams told councillors that services that are taken for granted such as leisure will suffer, and need to look at other ways to survive, whilst he was also left concerned about the risk to public protection services.

“Street lighting will inevitably be cut again and Pembrokeshire may well resemble North Korea with the lights out if you look at Google earth map as a comparison!

“The authority’s chief executive, Ian Westley, has inherited an awful mess, the council’s previous obsession of keeping the council tax low has come back to bite us!” added Clr. Williams.