GUEST house owner Val Pickard resorted to offering her slab-laying skills to a team of contractors set to take almost five times longer than expected to replace pavement surfaces along one of Minehead's main tourism accommodation routes. Mrs Pickard's willingness to join the road gang working in Tregonwell Road, Minehead, for a session of manual labour followed her exasperation, and that of other businesses, at the time it has taken to complete the Somerset County Council job. The refurbishment was initially scheduled to take just a fortnight. But six weeks on the from the start of the work, the contractors are still there. And this week residents and businesses in the road were told the project were likely to take another three to four weeks. "I'm not a person who normally moans and when we all had the letters in April saying the work had to be carried out, we accepted that it had to be done, even though we knew it was going to disrupt our trade," said Mrs Pickard. "But the time it is taking this team of contractors to do the job is just ridiculous. "They arrive at 9am, have stopped for their first break by 10am and are gone from the site by the middle of the afternoon - it's just pathetic. "My husband is a builder and we are involved in property development, so I have laid slabs in the past. "I got to the stage this week when I went out and offered to give them a hand just so the job could be finished a bit quicker." Mrs Pickard said she had been told that the delay was due to the replacement slabs being a different size to the original ones. "But you would imagine that a surveyor would have picked that up before the work even started and taken it into account. "Tourism in Minehead is not having a very good time at the moment and this is not helping us one little bit. "The road is partially blocked, the pavement is obviously impassable in places, a disabled ramp at the junction with Glenmore Road has had barriers around it for the past month and the whole area just looks a mess - it's an absolute eyesore. "Tregonwell Road has the majority of guest houses in the town and this is certainly hitting any passing trade we are used to picking up at this time of year. "If I looked down here and saw all this going on I'd keep on driving." However, after the Free Press arranged to take a photograph of the disruption suffered by residents and businesses, the county council announced it would be calling a halt to the work to avoid the tourist season. A spokesman said work would stop when a "suitable point" was reached and would begin again later in the year - although no date has yet been given. She said the contractors were renewing the footway "in patches" and were having to match in with the original slabs, which had proved to be more time consuming than originally anticipated. l Val Pickard is pictured holding the letter saying the work would take two weeks. With her are fellow residents Julie Lindley, Sandy Poingdestre, Peter Thompson, Susan Eglese, Kym Francis-Hill, Linda Hatch and Warren Eglese. Photo: Steve Guscott.