Despite Kilgetty and Begelly Community Council’s application for funding to enhance a village play park not coming to fruition, councillors have been encouraged to apply for further funding from a different pot.

At the recent meeting of the Community Council, Cllr Jerry Long told members that unfortunately, the application to the ‘Levelling Up’ fund for £150k to install new playground equipment and a meeting place in the centre of the common with a cover, lighting and free WIFI was turned down.

“However, Pembrokeshire County Council have asked us to apply to the ‘Enhancing Pembrokeshire Fund’ and we are working on that as we speak,” explained Cllr Long, who along with fellow community councillor Paul Wyatt and County councillor for the Ward Cllr Alistair Cameron recently met with the headteacher and School Senedd at Stepaside School, to ascertain the views of the children as to what play equipment they would like in the new area.

“The intention is that the school children will consider what play equipment they would like as part of a school project in January. This information will need to be included in the application,” said Cllr Cameron.

“The meeting went well, and we left some catalogues from the play equipment companies and the school are going to do a project which the children will present back to us in the New Year,” continued Cllr Long.

“We also discussed the playground with parents and children, and based on the feedback we got, they liked the idea of having local history incorporated into the playground.

“The Clerk has emailed a lot of suppliers of playground equipment asking them to quote for one large piece of equipment to install in a corner of the area ASAP then at least we should have something that the children can enjoy while we continue to raise funds to complete the whole park.

“We need to wait for the ground to dry up so we can sort out the yellow tunnel and put in in position and put the soil on top to create a mound with the slide on,” he added.