A petition calling for the resignation of Pembrokeshire County Council’s incoming chairman has been launched this week.

The online petition is targeting Narberth member Councillor Wynne Evans following his stance over a recent planning controversy.

The authority’s planning committee recently gave the go-ahead for a retail and residential scheme on the former Narberth CP School site at the entrance to the Townsmoor car park, which has a Sainsbury’s Local convenience store as its cornerstone retailer.

Townspeople have been outraged that the plan was passed ‘without any public consultation’, with Councillor Evans quoted as saying that a public meeting on the proposal had been cancelled because there was too much opposition to the development.

As the Western Telegraph recently reported, there has subsequently been feeling in the town that the support shown for the plan by Councillor Evans - who is also vice-charman of the planning committee - made it difficult for any other member of the committee to question his stance.

The online petition has been set up by Simon Montgomery, opinions editor of the OneNarberth online community platform.

He claimed that ‘Narberth is seething with indignation’ that the development has been given the go-ahead without any public consultation.

He adds: “The town is not necessarily against the development. It is arguing the case that there has been no accountability to the town of any description with regard to the development.”

Calling for Councillor Evans to resign as Narberth’s county councillor, Mr Montgomery accuses him of breaching the trust of his electors, continuing: “You have presided over a situation in which the voice of the town, at a critical moment in its history, has not been given the opportunity to be heard.

“You have benefited yourself with the baubles of office that you wear with such obvious pride.

“You have not benefited the town by a single brick.

“This is not the role of a county councillor; it is the role of a knave.”

Mr Montgomery said that the petition, launched on Thursday evening, had been attracting signatures at the rate of over five an hour, together with some ‘very interesting’ comments, which were going directly to Councillor Evans’s Pembrokeshire County Council email inbox.

When contacted by the Western Telegraph, Councillor Evans said he would ‘rather not’ make any comment on the petition.