WORCESTER city centre's problem-plagued High Street has come under attack once again after slabs were left uneven and poorly presented.

Shoppers have been left less than impressed with the latest round of temporary repair works and there were reports of people tripping over the raised slabs after barriers were taken away late on Monday afternoon.

Engineers were back on site outside the Guildhall yesterday to continue with the work but Oliver Ward, aged 43, of Warndon Villages, Worcester, said: "It's a bit of a joke. It doesn't look very good does it? They have had problems before so I don't know why they have to keep re-doing it. They should just do it properly and get it sorted."

Mary Brookes of St John's, Worcester, agreed.

"They always seem to be down here doing work," she said. "It looks really messy. It's not a very good advert for the city."

Georgia Smith, head of Visit Worcester, refused to condem the latest round of repair work.

"Obviously whenever you have a city centre you have to keep doing maintenance work on it because of the wear and tear that occurs naturally," she said.

A Worcestershire County Council spokesman said he sympathised with both shoppers and traders but added officers are having to undertake temporary repairs while they try to find the right balance to make the High Street stable and safe for both pedestrians and vehicles.

"We don't want to get into a situation where vehicles aren't allowed into the High Street because traders need their deliveries and collections," he said.

In response to the raised slabs the spokesman said the work is being done by contractors on behalf of the county council and that if work is not finished properly they will be asked to go back and finish the job.

"It might be that we will have to have a quick word with somebody," he said.

The £1.3 million project to refurbish the city's main shopping street has been dogged with problems since it began in May 2004.

The work was organised by the then transportation partnership including Worcestershire County Council and Worcester City Council, and was supposed to be finished four months later but suffered a series of setbacks.

It was finally completed in May 2005 but cracks and holes began to appear in sections of the new surface just two months after it was laid.