County councillors were conspicuous by their absence when around 130 people staged a peaceful demonstration outside Haverfordwest's 169-year-old Shire Hall on Wednesday.

Only Cllr Bill Philpin attended, together with several former mayors and sheriffs and other representatives of the town council.

No members of the cabinet and no Haverfordwest members turned up to show concern for the future of a building which has been described as the jewel in the crown of the county town's built heritage.

Officials of Haverfordwest Civic Society, who organised the protest against the county council's decision to offer first refusal to pub chain J. D. Wetherspoon, hoisted a Pembrokeshire banner and the Diocesan flag on the hall's flagpoles.

Acting chairman Geoffrey Foster said he hoped the county council would begin to comprehend the intensity of feeling in the town and many parts of Pembrokeshire about the Shire Hall's future and see that the time had come for dialogue.

"Under the old regime there was no dialogue with county hall," he remarked. "They were determined to shuffle off all responsibility for the building.

"The Shire Hall was.,in a very real sense, the heart of the town - we want to give Haverfordwest back its heart."

Stressing the multi-purpose public use potential of the building, Mr Foster said the Shire Hall would not only serve tourists, particularly on damp summer afternoons, but could equally be a magnet and a meeting place for townsfolk, bringing infinitely more benefit to the town and county than a single-use theme pub.