A COUNCIL has ended an ongoing row over work to relay and replace cobbles in Richmond Market Place by announcing the completion of the work.

The £55,000 programme to maintain the cobbles has been completed on schedule by North Yorkshire County Council – but local traders and councillors were unhappy with the amount of time it took to complete the work.

County councillor Don Mackenzie, executive member for highways, said: “The work on the cobbles represents a major investment in Richmond Market Place as part of the county council’s highways maintenance programme.

“We have made sure that this work to the cobbles retains and maintains the historic appeal of the market place to both local people and visitors, as well as addressing issues of highway safety.”

But Richmond councillor Stuart Parsons said the work took far longer than necessary and the contractors were unable to source materials needed to finish the job.

He said: “It could have been done so much quicker if they had addressed the problem of the materials before they started the work.

“It’s unacceptable to say they just don’t have the materials needed, why don’t they?

“The fire damage to buildings at the other end of Finkle Street was no fault of the council – but they should realise that it is a difficult time for businesses and they need every support, and they need to be kept informed of what is going on.”

Peter Warne, owner of Ken Warne’s grocers, said: “The process should have been streamlined but it just wasn’t. It’s a crying shame that this area could have completed well within the five week period.”

Cllr Mackenzie added: “At the start of this major maintenance programme we made a commitment to local business and residents to complete the cobbling in sections so that more of the market place could continue to be used at any one time.

“We also ensured that the contractor had a representative on site to visit the affected businesses on a daily basis to discuss the progress of the works to take into account, where possible, their requests relating to the operations and deliveries.

“We made a commitment that we would complete the job by Friday, October 2 and the county council met the target, despite an unexpected difficulty on the part of our sub-contractor in sourcing the special grouting material.

“We worked round this and finished on schedule."