RE: Public meeting, Solva Memorial Hall, on Wednesday, February 18 about Newgale Shingle Bank.

MY thanks to Darren Thomas and Emyr Williams of the highways department for staging the crucial meeting in Solva on the unsustainability of the shingle bank in Newgale and the dire potential consequences for the adjacent arterial road to Solva and St Davids.

In my view the creation of a causeway bridge across the valley is the only answer to the inevitable advance of the sea and the disappearance of the road, sooner than later.

The cost of such a construction would, of course, be an issue.

I would encourage the local population, however, to get behind a campaign to persuade government of the equity of funding such a bridge in the light of the huge public investments in transport infrastructure currently being proposed for the city regions of Swansea, Cardiff and Newport.

Finally there is the matter of the military base in Brawdy, which is to close in 2018 after 65 years of underpinning the economy of the St Davids peninsula.

Pembrokeshire County Council is already considering the future potential uses of the site.

Without a serviceable road access, however, there would be no future for this monolithic cold war edifice, which would slowly rot in perpetuity.

Would it not, therefore, be an appropriate legacy on the closure of Brawdy for government to fund a new, secure road access to Solva and St Davids by way of a defence dividend to replace the considerable economic loss of the base to the community?

Cllr DAVID LLOYD

St Davids