A GROUP of residents unhappy with repairs to cobbles in their town have pledged to take matters into their own hands by doing the work themselves.

Geoff Dellow claims efforts carried out on behalf of Cumbria County Council’s highways department to fix the ‘setts’ of cobbles in The Gill, Ulverston, were not up to scratch and he is leading the charge to improve the situation.

“I think the setts are an absolute disgrace,” said Mr Dellow.

“They are getting worse and worse and you can’t believe the state they are getting in.

“We are proposing to do the job ourselves using a different technique which is used in Europe, particularly in Rome and also in Dublin.

“They line a whole square in a day and the cobbles are laid next to each other without any mortar – they are packed in tight so that they are wedged together.

“Steam is building up here in the Gill to do this job ourselves and work is planned to start in August.”

Town and county councillor James Airey has confirmed that repairs will be carried out within the next six weeks, but Mr Dellow is not convinced that this will solve the problem.

“There are some ‘setts’ that have been done correctly, but generally they stuff them back in such a way that they get disturbed straight away,” said Mr Dellow. “Why can’t they come and do a decent job of repairing them?”

A county council spokesman said: “A works order for the cobbles in question is currently being prepared and we have a target completion date for the work for the end of August.

“With Mr Dellow’s proposal to carry out the work there are a lot of obstacles.

"He would need a permit from CCC to work in the highway – which would not be granted because of certain conditions of a permit, one of which would be that he would need a £5m public liability insurance.

“Any claims that may arise as a result of these works would be the responsibility of Mr Dellow.

“For any wrks he would need traffic management for which he must be suitably qualified or he must employ a suitably qualified contractor.

"Only approved contractors can work on the highway.”