City's £19m revamp due to finish

A £19m project to improve Leicester city centre will be finished by 31 August after almost three years of work, council bosses have said.

The work began in January 2006, with the pavements being dug up and re-laid to make them more "solid".

Development project manager Barry Pritchard said the new pavement slabs would remain in place for 40 years.

He added that on 1 September most of the barriers would also be removed from the city centre area.

"We will have finished all the work and, as far as possible, we will have removed all the barriers and all the equipment," he said.

The areas being refurbished include High Street, Clock Tower, Gallowtree Gate, Market Street and Horsefair Street.

'Solid' structures

The average cost of each granite slab is about £6.

"The work itself is very expensive because we have laid the concrete foundation and then the tiles on that.

"So we have got a structure now which is not going to move.

"Previously we have always found that when they are laid on sand, the slabs rock, then people trip over them, then we have to go back and re-lay them."

He said the new construction of the pavements were "very solid", and "nothing will move for probably the next 40 years".