WORK on completing improvements to Tenbury town centre is making progress to completion..

But this follows a series of delays.

Ken Pollock, who represents Tenbury on Worcestershire County Council expressed his concern about the latest set back.

The project to improve the town centre has spread over a number of years and has encountered many problems.

It is being led by Worcestershire County Council and had to be done in two phases because of the delay in starting work on the Tesco site.

This was because the project is part funded by Tesco as part of the planning agreement that that enabled the supermarket chain to build on the former auction yard site.

“Most of you will be aware of the problems we have encountered with some of the new slabs laid on the footways in Teme Street,” Mr Pollock told of meeting of the Tenbury Town Council.

“I know the matter was under investigation again today and hope we can find a sensible solution soon.

“It would appear that the root cause may well be over-running by large vehicles, but this would be disappointing as you may recall we delayed this work to enable the use of a substrate that would be better able to withstand such use.

“I can assure you that the tarmac repairs are temporary and we will find a proper permanent solution soon. We are also keen to see the rest of the public realm work completed.”

The problems during the first phase of the work included a row about the selection of the materials that were used.

Traders were also unhappy because they said that business was damaged because of restrictions in access to the town centre.

In order to limit the inconvenience to shops and businesses in the town it was decided that some of the work would be done overnight.

But this again resulted in problems with some people complaining that they had their sleep interrupted by noise and bright lights.

There was a long delay between the end of phase one and the start of phase two.

Worcestershire County Council said that it was unable to go-ahead and fund the work without the contribution from Tesco.

However, despite the fact that the idea of a supermarket on the former cattle market site was first muted more than eight years ago in May 2018 there was a long delay before work started. This began in the autumn of 2016 with a view to opening in early 2017.