A £400,000 project to improve the pavements in High Wycombe's High Street is well underway - after years of complaints about the crumbling surfaces.

Eleven areas of the town's High Street are being repaired and replaced by Transport for Bucks engineers.

Work started on the £400,000 project last week - to the joy of local councillors who have been calling for improvements to be made for years.

As well as laying fresh York and granite paving, the highway maintenance team is also inspecting surface water drains to prevent any flooding

Cllr Nick Naylor, Buckinghamshire Council's transport chief, went down to check out the progress of the improvement works.

He said: “I am very pleased to see the workmanship ensuring a ‘like for like’ replacement of the setts. It was good to see the gang for myself and it is clearly a lengthy process to lift, fit and replace these individual setts by hand. I am sure that the end product will be appreciated by all.”

Cllr Lesley Clarke, who represents residents living in the area, said: “I was very involved in the scope of this refurbishment project from the start, so it’s really good to see these works are now underway.”

The work got underway on October 12 and will continue until the end of November, when it will be paused for a Christmas works embargo.

It will start up again on January 11 for five weeks - but it is all weather dependent, so could change.

Councillors have previously complained about the state of the town centre, calling for repairs.

In June last year, Cllr Sebert Graham said High Wycombe has “one of the worst high streets” with broken paving slabs everywhere.

He said: “We talk about this time and time again, and each time we get new promises about what will be done. It is about time we get the high street sorted out."

At the same time, Cllr Clarke said: "It is totally unjust to the people of Wycombe when we have a high street that is in such bad repair, that is in desperate need of having things done to it."