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TENBY SPECTACULAR: “Too good at the job” — volunteers end the event for good after council revokes licence

The Tenby Summer Spectacular is over — with the volunteers behind it for almost 40 years saying they are ending the event for good after its premises licence was revoked.

The Tenby Round Table told supporters it was “sorry to announce” that the licence to host the Spectaculars in Tenby Harbour had been revoked for all future events, following a hearing before a Pembrokeshire County Council licensing sub-committee on July 9.

“While we do not agree with the decision, we respect the Sub-Committee’s role and its overriding concern for the safety of those attending the events,” the group said.

But as volunteers who had “already devoted hundreds of hours to fighting for these events this year alone”, the group said it now felt it must “draw a line under the Summer Spectaculars in Tenby Harbour”.

One comment from the hearing, the group said, had stayed with them — a sub-committee member telling the volunteers: “I think you’re just too good at the job.”

“We simply wish we had been given the support to continue doing it,” the Round Table said.

Why the licence was revoked

The sub-committee concluded the licensing objectives were not being adequately met — leaving what it called significant concerns regarding crowd safety, emergency access and the protection of children from harm, the statutory tests every premises licence in Wales and England is judged against.

Cllr Aaron Carey, the council’s cabinet member with responsibility for the licensing service, said neither he nor the council took “any satisfaction whatsoever” from a decision he knew would disappoint the event’s organisers, volunteers and charities.

The committee heard evidence from Dyfed-Powys Police, the Welsh Ambulance Services NHS Trust, Mid and West Wales Fire and Rescue Service, council officers and the organisers — and Cllr Carey said the police’s concerns were “extremely powerful”.

The ambulance service raised significant concerns about emergency medical access to and within the event, he said, while the fire service detailed concerns about crowd numbers, uncontrolled attendance and emergency access.

“There were significant concerns from agencies that, due to the size and popularity of the event, it had outgrown its current setting,” Cllr Carey said. “Public safety has to be paramount, particularly where an event involves large crowds in a working harbour environment.”

A Dyfed-Powys Police spokesperson said the force recognised “the great fundraising work done by the Tenby Round Table”, but had raised concerns around public safety, the protection of children from harm and the prevention of crime and disorder after reviewing the event in its current format.

The volunteers’ case

The Round Table insists public safety “is, and always has been, paramount to us” — and says it was the group itself that first raised the concerns with the council and police after the 2025 events.

Its position throughout has been that safe control of access to the harbour was fundamental — and that this control, combined with road closures and other measures already in place, would have allowed the events to continue safely.

The group said it had repeatedly pointed the council’s public realm department to a legal framework it believes would enable that control — and been repeatedly told it was not possible, “despite the same legislation being used in Tenby for other large events specifically to control crowd movement on public footpaths”.

When the volunteers — who had taken independent legal advice — raised the point again before the sub-committee, the group said the hearing was suspended so the council could review its position on a matter the organisers had been told was already settled.

The Round Table said it had been prepared to accept amendments to its licence, and was happy to review crowd numbers, security, medical provision and road closures: “All we needed in return was the ability to control the number of people accessing the harbour and beach.”

A contested future

The council said after the decision that it and its partner agencies stood ready to support discussions aimed at bringing “this much-valued event back to Tenby” in a way that satisfies safety and licensing requirements.

The Round Table disputed that picture — saying the council’s clear view at the hearing itself was that any future event would not be taking place in Tenby Harbour, and that while the offer to work constructively was welcome, “we wish [it] had been apparent throughout this process”.

The dispute burst into the open in June, when the group accused the council of leaving it waiting months for an answer on crowd control powers — before cancelling this summer’s events with a pledge to return. The licence had been called in for review for the first time in 14 years.

“This has never been about raising more money or shifting liability,” the group said. “It has always been about our ability to host these fundraising events safely for our community and its visitors.”

Thanking supporters for helping raise hundreds of thousands of pounds for local charities and good causes over the decades, the volunteers signed off: “We hope you cherish the memories as much as we have loved creating them.”

The July 9 hearing can be viewed on the council’s webcast portal.

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TENBY: Spectacular event axe confirmed as safety-law deadlock with council goes unresolved

The volunteers behind Tenby‘s Summer Spectacular have formally confirmed that this year’s events are cancelled, after failing to resolve a dispute with the council over crowd safety.

Tenby Round Table said the two events, due to be held on 16 and 30 August, could not safely go ahead without a clear, lawful way to control pedestrian access to the harbour event area.

In a statement, the volunteers said it was “with huge sadness and heartfelt regret” that they were calling off the 2026 events.

The decision brings to a head a dispute that first spilled into the open last week, when the group said it had been left waiting months for an answer from Pembrokeshire County Council.

At the heart of it is a single question the Round Table says it has been asking since late May: which legal power the council would use to let organisers temporarily restrict pedestrian access through the licensed event area.

The group said this was not red tape but “the foundation of safe crowd management” for an increasingly popular event in Tenby Harbour — something it said both organisers and the emergency services wanted.

It said it had received three written responses from the council, none of which, in its view, answered the question with a clear legal basis.

The Round Table said the first two responses dealt with road traffic powers, while a third, received on 25 June, looked instead at historic harbour documents and concluded the council had no power to restrict access to the beach.

The volunteers stressed they were “not lawyers” but said they had asked the council to point to the specific law preventing it, and had not been given one.

The group said the council had instead suggested two alternatives, neither of which it considered workable.

One would see the volunteers manage public access to the beach themselves within an agreed capacity figure, which the group said it had not been given.

The other would involve redrawing the event boundary, which the Round Table said would require substantial fencing that could block emergency vehicle access and create its own safety risk.

The volunteers also pointed to last year’s Ironman Wales event, when they said the council used a road traffic power to close a pedestrian route to a Tenby beach.

The group said it was not criticising that decision, but had not been told why the same approach could not be considered for the Summer Spectacular.

The Round Table said the previous open-access arrangement had rightly been flagged as unsatisfactory by the emergency services, because of the risk of overcrowding in the harbour — one of the reasons its licence had been called in for review for the first time in 14 years.

The harbour and its beaches draw huge numbers of visitors to the town each summer, with extra measures already brought in this year to manage the seasonal crowds.

When the dispute first emerged, Pembrokeshire County Council said it had never asked for the event to be cancelled, and that it remained willing to work with organisers.

The Round Table said the council had, on being told of the cancellation, offered to help plan a “robust event management plan” for 2027.

The group said it was not walking away, and would keep working through the licensing process — adding that it was also exploring whether the Welsh Government could use its own powers to help.

The volunteers said the events had raised money for local charities and brought the community together for the best part of 40 years.

“We will return,” the statement said.

Related stories from Swansea Bay News

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TENBY SPECTACULAR: Beloved summer event AXED — as furious volunteers turn on the council

One of Tenby’s best-loved summer traditions has been cancelled, with the volunteers who run it blaming a nine-month wait for a council decision on crowd safety.

The Tenby Summer Spectacular, due to take place on 16 and 30 August, has been called off “until further notice,” its organisers announced.

The events, run by Tenby Round Table, have been a fixture of the town’s summer for decades and raise money for local charities, sports teams and community groups.

The organisers said the cancellation was “a decision that has been forced upon us.”

At the heart of the row is a single question about how crowds are safely managed at the harbour event.

To run the events lawfully, the Round Table says it needs Pembrokeshire County Council to use statutory powers to temporarily restrict pedestrian access to the event area once it reaches capacity.

It describes this as a standard tool used by councils across the country for public events of this kind.

The group says it first raised the issue with the council in September 2025, raised it again formally in writing in May, and has chased it repeatedly since.

The volunteers say they have commissioned health and safety consultants, produced event management plans and attended every meeting asked of them.

“We have done everything a responsible event organiser can do,” they said.

The Round Table says the written responses it finally received, only in the past two weeks, contain what it believes to be “factual inaccuracies and misleading statements” about the law governing the power.

It also claims the council has acknowledged that the legal advice it is relying on is “provisional and still under internal review.”

The organisers say they cannot commit to running events for thousands of people based on a legal position they say the council’s own officers have admitted is not settled.

The group warned that the cancellation would be “a devastating blow” to the charities its funds support, saying hundreds of thousands of pounds have gone to good causes since the events began.

The cancellation is provisional, with the Round Table setting the council a deadline of 25 June to provide what it called “a clear, accurate, and legally grounded answer.”

The council, however, firmly rejected any suggestion it had forced the event off.

Deputy leader Cllr Paul Miller said the authority had supported the Spectacular for nearly 15 years and had “not requested or given direction that the event should be cancelled.”

He said the harbour was a working harbour and a key community asset, and that the council had a duty to ensure the event could take place safely.

That included addressing concerns formally raised by the responsible authorities under licensing law, which include the emergency services, he said.

“Once the organisers provide the required information, the licensing sub committee will consider the event application, in exactly the same way they consider the large number of other events which occur across Pembrokeshire each year,” he said.

The committee is currently scheduled to meet in July.

Local member Cllr Sam Skyrme-Blackhall said she wanted to see the events go ahead, and was “really encouraged” from meetings with senior officers that everyone was ready to help make them happen.

In response to the council’s statement, the Round Table said it welcomed Cllr Miller’s words but stood by its account of events.

The group said the one outstanding question — how pedestrian access would be lawfully managed — was the single element holding up its event management plan, and that only the council could answer it.

It said its most recent email on the issue, sent on Monday, had not yet been acknowledged, and urged councillors to press officers to respond by the deadline.

A council licensing committee is due to meet in July to decide whether the event’s licence is renewed, amended or withdrawn.

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