Back to the future (From Western Telegraph)

Back to the future

8:19am Saturday 5th January 2008 in

• Skip social links
• Print
• Email
•  

Writing for the Pembrokeshire Almanack 1949, published by the Western Telegraph, Mr Price expressed his views on the future development of the county in an article entitled Pembrokeshire of Tomorrow - A Tour of the County in 2008.

Looking forwards to 2008 (and the bicentenary of Richard Fenton's famous historical tour through Pembrokeshire), Mr Price took an imaginary journey through the county. It is important, however, to put the ideas that he advanced in the context of the post-war Britain in which he was living.

In Haverfordwest, he described "standing in the spacious bus centre and central car park at Jubilee Gardens" and looking "up to the Civic Centre on Prospect Place" ... "only rivalled in splendour by the ancient castle, now so well preserved as the show-place of the town".

"Haverfordwest, with its population of some 16,000 souls, is the thriving commercial and administrative centre of the county," Mr Price continued, and went on to describe a Trading Estate at Cartlett Gate', with various factories including one to freeze the "county's rich market garden produce".

He foresaw the development of Withybush Airport into a commercial concern, but he thought that air travel for holidaymakers to Pembrokeshire would become commonplace - and that Carew Cheriton airfield would be developed for passenger and commercial transport.

Mr Price suggested vast quantities of flowers would be widely grown in Pembrokeshire "so that this county far out-rivals the Scilly Islands".

Perhaps, if he had replaced flowers with early potatoes, there would have been some truth in his prediction.

The article continued with Fishguard: "In the Square still stands the Royal Oak Inn, commemorating the last Invasion of Britain, while opposite is the busy Town Hall with its public offices, concert hall and cinema".

At Goodwick, he imagined that "the barren waste of the Town Moor" would have been "laid out with first-class cricket and football pitches, bowling greens, tennis court, children's play-corners and a fine open-air swimming pool. Opposite this attractive open space is the promenade".

In St Davids, "the National Parks Commission erected a fine museum... only being equalled, for a local museum, by that at Tenby".

"The seaside resort of Broad Haven" would be "a thriving community owing its prosperity partly to the large number of holiday visitors and partly to the fact that it is, with Johnston and Haverfordwest, the residential area for the miners from the adjacent coalfield".

From the shores of Milford Haven, Mr Price hoped to observe that "besides remaining one of the country's principal fishing ports, large quantities of coal are exported". In 1948, he was clearly unable to foresee the importance of oil as the fuel of the future.

Mr Price continued: "Our next place of interest is the town of Neyland and here we inspect the Haven Barrage linking Neyland and Pembroke Dock. This fine engineering feat, combining as it does road and rail communications, a hydro-electric plant -- with a subsidiary dam across the mouth of Cosheston Pill.

"Driving across the Barrage we enter Pembroke Dock, now, fortunately, no longer classified a distressed area, as a sugarbeet and other factories fully ensure the prosperity of the area".

On the outskirts of Tenby, Mr Price described "the first class county cricket ground constructed on the Ritec Marshes", and stops to "admire the fine boating lake which was incorporated into this flood prevention and land reclamation scheme".

As he travelled north again towards Fishguard, Mr Price passed through "the magnificent Gwaun Valley, now so carefully cherished as a National Nature Reserve".

Readers will be able to judge for themselves how many of these ideas have reached fruition, but it is clear that Mr Price had a vision of a prosperous future for the county when he wrote his article 60 years ago.