Last updated 19:43, Thursday, 17 April 2008

CAMPAIGNERS have vowed to carry on fighting plans to rip up the cobbles of Workington’s Portland Square.

The county council - which received a petition against the plans from the Times & Star with 865 signatures - said the Georgian square will be back on its agenda next year.

It had to stop its proposals to revamp Portland Square this year because of a lack of funds but its Allerdale engineer said it would be a priority in 2009.

The county wants to remove the 200-year-old cobbles because they are a safety risk.

But Workington MP Tony Cunningham has urged the people of Workington to be vigilant if the threat of removal happens again.

He said: “The message is that the cobbles are not safe yet. People need to be extremely vigilant and to make sure that next time there is a threat that the cobbles will be dug up that they are awake to it.

“This year the county council were unable to secure the funding, what we don’t want to happen next year is that they get the money and we wake up one day to find the cobbles being ripped up.

“I don’t think the county council have conducted a proper consultation and if the cobbles are to come up on the agenda next year then they need to.”

The Times & Star launched its Save Our Cobbles campaign earlier this year and people from all over the country signed our petition to stop the cobbles’ removal.

Workington and District Civic Trust has also pledged to back another campaign to save the cobbles.

Pat Martin, of the trust, said: “We will absolutely be supporting any campaign to save the cobbles next year.

“At the Helena Thompson Museum we had close to 300 signatures on the petition and not one person refused to sign it.

“I have never objected so much to anything in my life. The cobbles must stay.”

County council engineer for Allerdale, Andrew Butler, was speaking at a local committee meeting on Tuesday when he said he could not give an answer either way about the cobbles’ future.

The council wants to replace them with sandstone setts but it failed to secure the £550,000 it needed from the Northwest Development Agency for the upgrade of the square.

The Times & Star handed over its Save Our Cobbles petition at the meeting.

Phil Atherton, the county’s area support manager for Allerdale, accepted the petition on behalf of the council.

However, Mr Butler said that the cobbles would again be a priority next year.

He said: “We have hit a 12-month hitch, but we will get back on track with the project in Workington.

“This time next year it is likely that we will have secured the funding.

“We have to set budgets and if it is deliverable and if the Northwest Development Agency will help us with the funding then we will look at the plans again.”

The agency suffered a cut in its budget this year and so not all the money was available.

This means that schemes like Workington’s Murray Road and Finkle Street will now be prioritised.

Councillor Alan Clark said that the cobbles were in a conservation area and should be looked after.

But Mr Butler said: “There is a potential safety issue here and we can’t lose sight of that at all.

“But we need to be respectful of the lands heritage and through consultation that will take a lot of time. The project needs to be given time.

“For the time being, we will have to leave the cobbles as they are, unsafe but we will continue with the consultation period.”

Members chose to discuss the future of the cobbles and the Portland Square scheme at the local committee's next meeting on June 3.

They requested time for more costings to be done on the planned improvements to Murray Road and Finkle Street, before deciding whether to redirect money to this scheme from Portland Square.

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