Changes to a Marlow shopping street that have been in the pipeline for more than two years have now been delayed again, with the town council admitting the plans have “gone back to the drawing board.”

The long awaited makeover of Spittal Street – which was first announced in January 2015 – is supposed to include a new cobbled “informal crossing” for pedestrians and wall-mounted LED lanterns to replace lamp posts in a bid to give the street its own “identity” and free up pavement space.

The contentious improvements were unveiled by the town council as part of its Vision for Marlow in January 2015 and were initially planned to go ahead in April that year.

However, the project was delayed until April 2016 due to problems arranging the costs, and then postponed again.

The recent transformation of Anglers Court was supposed to be an extension to the Spittal Street upgrade but has already been completed by Sorbon Estates.

When asked about the schedule for the rest of the Spittal Street works at a meeting of the Marlow Community Forum (MCF), there was some confusion about the plans, with town council clerk, Annie Jones, saying she did not know what was going on with them.

She said: “It is all still in abeyance. It was supposed to be planned with the Windsor House development, so I don’t know.

“There is no estimation of cost at the moment. It has all gone back to the drawing board basically, because we are so much further down the road.

“It is Wycombe District, Sorbon are contributing to it and Marlow town council are contributing towards it, but it is Wycombe’s project.”

However, despite this, Wycombe District Council has insisted that the scheme is in fact a Marlow Town Council project, being implemented by Bucks County Council.

Sue Robinson, a spokesman for Wycombe District Council, said their only involvement is putting Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) funding towards it.

And Sorbon Estates also refused to comment on the matter.

The project has been marred by criticism since it was first announced, with Marlow architect John Burnham uncovering in a Freedom of Information request that the £100,000 cost of the project had spiralled to around £162,000 in February last year.

Lance Slater, a Marlow Rotarian, also told the meeting of the MCF at the end of January that he thought the improvement works were “unnecessary.”

Mrs Jones also reassured community figures at the meeting that the town council’s “Vision for Marlow” which was launched in 2012 was not going to be dispersed.

The council’s vision for the town was to make Marlow “the most attractive and vibrant riverside town in the Thames Valley.”

Mrs Jones said: “It is another thing that is being looked at. It is certainly not going to be disbanded, far from it.

“It is going to have a breath of fresh air put into it but there is nothing else to report. It has not been finalised yet."