THE trustees of Pembroke Dock’s Pater Hall must not hold the town council to ransom over a potential moving of its office, members of the council have been warned.

It had been proposed to move the upstairs staff office to the downstairs Warrior Room at the Pater Hall for improved disabled access, along with other changes.

Members had previously heard the Pater Hall Trust was intending to install a partition wall, allowing the town council to host both its offices and its meetings in the Warrior Room.

At the September meeting of the council, members heard the office space would be smaller than the existing upstairs office.

Clerk Sarah Scourfield raised concerns about the tendering process and that the town council wouldn’t have exclusive use of the room.

Councillor Andrew McNaughton said a recent temporary move by the council to the ‘pop-up shop’ at nearby Dimond Street had shown an office move was possible.

“It’s not a sacred cow for this office to move out of the Pater Hall,” adding: “We can still meet here on a monthly basis.”

Councillor Pam George said the Trust had been “through some bitter times,” adding: “At the moment the hall is doing very well; the one thing we need is the backing of the council through the rent money; losing that rent money would make a big void in keeping the hall going.”

Trust member Councillor Phil Gwyther warned the Trust would “close completely” if it lost the council’s rent.

“That would leave us with an empty building; are we going to say sod the building?”

Councillor Don Earl replied: “You said if we move out, you would close the Trust down; I don’t think you should hold the council to ransom.”

Members agreed to hold an urgent meeting with the Trust.