We're having nun of that!

Plans to erect a sign with the image of a bare-breasted nun outside a seaside resort hotel, converted from a convent, have angered councillors. Tenby Town Council is urging planners to refuse permission for the sign which depicts a nun lifting her bodice.

They claim it is "disrespectful and inappropriate" for use outside the former St Teresa's Convent building.

However they are supporting plans to turn the convent into a luxury hotel, restaurant and bar. The convent was home to nuns until 1996 when the sisters who ran it became too old to continue. It had been a boarding convent school prior to that.

Businessman Sean Roche has submitted two separate applications for the hotel which he plans to call The Convent. The first is for a change of use of the building and the second is for the external wall-mounted sign.

Tenby town council clerk Andrew Davies: "We are supportive of the creation of a small hotel. We have lost quite a number of hotels which have become residential flats." But he said all but two councillors voted to oppose the sign. "Our council feels that as a publicity sign it is totally inappropriate. We think the sign is disrespectful to the nuns who used to run the convent."

The final decision on the applications rests with the Pembrokeshire National Park Authority and its members are set to discuss the applications next month.