THE standard of street repairs carried out on the pavements in Newcastle Emlyn has come in for criticism.

The dangerous state of footpaths through the town – caused by lorries and cars mounting the kerbs to get past one another – had been raised by members of the town council in the past couple of months.

Repairs have recently been carried out by Carmarthenshire County Council but Cllr Maureen Webley told June’s meeting of the town council that she was far from satisfied with both the appearance and quality of the work.

“Aesthetically, it is not good at all and it's disappointing,” she said. “They have put down big wedges of concrete that are not anywhere near the same colour as the surrounding pavement slabs.

“Why could they have not used proper paving slabs? It’s a great shame and a bit of a mess.

“In Market Square, they have filled in a lot of cracks but the mix they have used is not quite right and within a couple of days of people walking on it, it has all crumbled. We now have cracks in the repairs.

“The whole town is a conservation area and somewhere in the county, they have not taken that into consideration at all. There are now patches that really are not good.”

Cllr Kelvin Baker agreed, adding: “They would soon jump on us if we did anything wrong in a conservation area.”

Cllr Hazel Evans said: “It is not good but they have made it safer for people to walk. Ideally you would dig down and lay a new base for slabs but there is not the money there to do it.”

The town council is to write to Carmarthenshire highways officials to spell out its concerns.