Santa will once again be putting on his festive party seaside attire this year as he makes his way to Tenby on Saturday, December 1, to officially turn on the resort’s Christmas tree lights.

It has even been suggested that he might be spotted making an appearance up the Church Steeple!

A recent meeting of the town’s ‘Christmas Festivities committee’ was held to discuss Tenby’s annual festive lighting switch on and the day’s proceedings.

It was agreed that the event this year would be on Saturday, December 1, with road closures for the centre of the town to take place between 12 noon until 6 pm.

It was confirmed that the lifeboat would launch at 4 pm with Santa and the Mayor, Clr. Mrs. Sue Lane on board and the RNLI crew would bring them both into Tudor Square on the inshore lifeboat for the light switch 0n at 5 pm.

The fire station officer would again be approached to see if the ?re engine would be available to take Santa up to the De Valence for the all-inclusive ‘Family Entertainment Evening’ commencing at 6 pm.

The parade will leave the square at approximately 5.30 pm to arrive at the De Valence by 5.45 pm, with Tenby Lions would again providing ‘glow sticks’ for the children.

It was mentioned that the coastguards added a nice touch last year and they would be asked if they would like to participate again this year.

The town clerk had attempted to establish if and when Tenby Round Table would be staging their Santa Run this year as last year they had struggled to get members to help on the Saturday due to work commitments.

This year, signage at the traffic lights should read ‘Access to harbour only’ to show that there will be no access to Tudor Square, as last year traffic was attempting to drive up through the crowds from the St Julian Street end.

The Salvation Army have confirmed that they will be in attendance between 2.30 and 3,30 pm on the day. Dancers would also be invited to be a part of the entertainment in Tudor Square and the DJ and town clerk agreed to see what children’s characters were currently in vogue to attend.

The Tenby House Hotel proprietors would also be asked if they were happy to provide the snow machine again this year.

Clr. Mrs Lane asked that charities and schools be invited to set up stalls, and the possibility of having ‘kiddies’ rides’ in the Square was also discussed.

The town clerk mentioned that the Christmas tree lights had been an issue last year. For the last two years they had been using shop purchased lights which had not proved robust enough. He had looked into the cost of commercial lights which were in the region of £2,000.

Clr. Mrs. Lane suggested that they look into obtaining some more competitive quotes to take to the town council’s ‘Lighting Committee’.

Speaking at Tuesday night’s meeting of the town council, Clr. Mrs. Lane told her colleagues that it had been a productive meeting.

“The Christmas lights switch-on day works well and we don’t want to change too much about it, we just want to add to it. It will be roughly the same but with a few new ideas introduced that we hope to confirm soon,” she added, confirming that the next meeting of the ‘Christmas Festivities committee’ will be held today (Friday).