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Cathy and Matt Harrison are so fed up with waiting for roadworks to end they are running a competition on the matter.

They own Gallery Boutique in Church Street where there have been roadworks intermittently for a year.

Now they are offering a £50 gift voucher to the person who can predict the date the last traffic cone is taken from the street.

Cathy explained that refurbishing the area started last May, was stopped by the July floods and started again in February It included re-laying the pavements and changes to the lay-out of the Crescent, outside the Abbey gates and the junction of Mill Street and Church Street.

They were told it would take eight weeks but is still not finished.

The pavements are unfinished and the promised bus shelter has not been installed in the Crescent.

"It has had a knock-on effect with our business, as people do not seem to want to make their way through the roadworks to get to us," Cathy said.

Ian Brown, of the Abbey Tea Rooms, in Church Street, said: "It does seem to have been going on an awfully long time.

"It is causing quite a bit of disruption but the people doing the work are doing all they can to make it as easy as possible."

County Highways say that the work has taken longer than expected but is due to finish on May 16.

Spokesman Marcus Hanning said: "Our original 12-week programme was based on two gangs working concurrently.

"However, because of the concerns raised by local businesses about us effectively closing off the Abbey end of the town, when we restarted work in February we reduced it to one gang.

"This has reduced disruption but meant that the work has taken 14 weeks instead of the intended seven."

12:20pm Thursday 8th May 2008

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