AN EXTRAORDINARY meeting of Pembrokeshire County Council’s Cabinet has approved the tender of improvements to Haverfordwest’s Riverside.

The plans include the controversial new footbridge to connect the town centre to Haverfordwest Castle.
Last week, the Services Overview and Scrutiny Committee called in the proposals at the behest of the Conservative Group and the IPG.

The Committee asked the Cabinet to provide further details about the cost of proceeding with the scheme and its potential financial impact on the Council’s revenue budget.

Deputy Leader Paul Miller chaired the meeting in Cllr David Simpson’s absence on annual leave. He immediately deferred to Darren Thomas, the Council’s Director of Transport and the Environment, to update the Cabinet with the information the Committee requested.

Mr Thomas confirmed the completion of the tender process and that the Walters Group would undertake the project on a fixed-price contract worth approximately £5.2m.

That sum includes considerable other works apart from the so-called “Instagrammable bridge”.
The contract’s scheduled completion date is March 31, 2025.

In 2021, Pembrokeshire County Council was awarded £17,700,266 from the UK Government’s Levelling Up Fund (LUF) to complete the Heart of Pembrokeshire project.

The Heart of Pembrokeshire Project is an extremely complex, multi-package project that will take place in and around Haverfordwest Castle, an ancient scheduled monument.

The grant awarded for the Signature Bridge element of the Heart of Pembrokeshire project is £5,119,383, and the Council must contribute 10% through match funding towards the project cost.

Based on the full grant awarded for the bridge element, the Council must contribute £568,820.

Mr Thomas explained to the Cabinet that there were structural issues with the existing footbridge crossing the Cleddau River as it flowed through Haverfordwest Town Centre.

Those issues were chronic, and the cost of maintaining the existing crossing – or even wholly replacing it without funding – was a drain on scarce resources that exceeded the Council’s contribution to the new bridge’s construction.

Darren Thomas reported the existing bridge’s limited lifespan made ongoing repairs uneconomic, while a like-for-like replacement would cost more than the contribution towards the new bridge’s construction. Repairing and protecting the existing bridge would mean its closure for an extended period for maintenance.

Cllr Alec Cormack, the Cabinet Member for Finance, said that if the investment did not represent value for money, he would not support it. He continued saying that as he supported the project, it followed that he thought it was good value for money.

Cllr Jon Harvey said that the regeneration of the County’s town centres should’ve taken place years ago. He commended the current administration’s commitment to ensuring that jobs left undone for too long were completed.

Cllr Rhys Sinnett echoed Cllr Harvey’s remarks, observing that town centres had declined and that regenerating them, encouraging increased footfall, and building fresh infrastructure was essential to help maintain them.

Paul Miller said that if the choices and projects were easy, the private sector would have undertaken the projects and completed them. In the absence of private investment, Cllr Miller said the Council had a choice between stepping back and doing nothing or acting decisively to arrest long-standing underinvestment in public spaces.

The Cabinet, he continued, had a clear strategic vision for Haverfordwest and was undertaking several projects to regenerate its town centre and others.

The Council won funding for regenerating Haverfordwest in competition and secured 90% funding from the UK Government to enable it to do so.

The Cabinet approved the tender unanimously, and Walters Group is expected to start work on the improvements soon.