A quartet of councillors that resigned from Tenby Town Council this week, have stated that they found it impossible to work with the current regime.

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Tenby councillors around the table at Tuesday night's meeting (Observer pic)

Former Mayors - Sue Lane, Tish Rossiter and Tony Brown all notified the town clerk at a meeting on Tuesday (February 7) evening that they would be standing down; along with fellow councillors Lynn Attewell and Matthew Ronowitz.

Stalwart councillors Lane and Rossiter had given over 60 years service between them, with Cllr Lane (who was the current Deputy Mayor) donning the scarlet robes of office nine times as Mayor.

Cllr Ronowitz’s reasoning for his resignation focused on the fact that he was concentrating on a ‘new business venture’; but perhaps most tellingly was Cllr Brown’s signing off correspondence, where he commented that he was tired of ‘battling’ with a ‘split council’ - stating it was ‘time to go!’

Now in the aftermath of the bombshell last night, four of the councillors that walked (Lane, Rossiter, Brown and Attewell) have put their names to a statement issued to the Observer.

“It is with great regret that we felt we had to resign. It was not a decision any of us took lightly,” it reads.

“We’ve tried to make it work, but collectively we found it impossible to work with the current regime.

“We found that more and more, proceedings were run by a small cabal, with meetings held that excluded us from discussions and any decision making process.

“Furthermore, financial decisions were made without any knowledge or input of some councillors.

“Collectively, we felt that the current regime was taking us in a direction that we didn’t want to go, which resulted in a split council, leaving the situation untenable,” adds the statement.

During the meeting after accepting three of the resignation letters (with Rossiter and Attewell handing them in once the meeting had gone into private) Mayor, Cllr Sam Skyrme-Blackhall said that it was a ‘sad moment’ for the Town Council.

The town clerk Andrew Davies said that if there was no election called for, to fill the vacancies, the town council would go down the route of co-opting new members.