Around 2,000 people have already signed petitions pleading with Pembrokeshire County Council not to put a major waste disposal site within yards of the Saundersfoot home of 40 elderly, mentally-ill people.

Support for Brooklands Nursing Home in its fight against the proposal has been mounting since it was revealed that the authority has earmarked land next door to the property for a new civic amenity site to serve south-east Pembroke-shire.

Relatives of residents in the home have described the idea as ‘shocking and shameful’. Their concerns that noise and pollution levels will have a detrimental effect on the well-being of their loved ones are being shared by a consultant psychiatrist.

“More and more people are coming on board,” said Brooklands co-manager Darren Umanee, whose parents have run the home for 27 years. “We are up to nearly 600 names on the online petition, and around 1200 people have signed our other petitions.

We are now waiting for the planning application to be submitted so that we can step up our campaign.”

The application is due to go in to the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park Authority ‘very soon’, spokesman Ceri Jones said on Monday.

Meanwhile, community council representatives have met in an attempt to identify an alternative location for a new civic amenity site to replace the current ‘unfit for purpose’ site at The Salterns, Tenby.

Councillors from Tenby, Penally, East Williamston, Saundersfoot and New Hedges put forward various suggestions for sites, including the Lower Salterns overflow car park area in Tenby.

Pembrokeshire County Council’s head of environmental services, Richard Brown, attended the meeting to offer advice.

Said Tenby's town clerk, Andrew Davies: “All the locations that the meeting could suggest have apparently been considered by the county council, and discounted for various reasons, including the Lower Salterns because it is on a flood plain.

“We would rather not lose the site from its current location at The Salterns, but if it is to move, next to Brooklands is not the right place, so we hope a suitable place will eventually be suggested.”