BUSINESSES in Tenbury have met council chiefs to thrash out the delayed plan to improve the look of the town.

The meeting took place to deal with that anticipated delay now it’s known the work won’t start until the end of 2014 at the earliest.

Plans for the £500,000 improvement to the public realm were the subject of a public consultation earlier in the year.

Included in the project are new pavements, improved roads and crossings as well as seating and other street furniture.

According to an original timetable the work should have been undertaken last year but it became linked with the building of the planned Tesco supermarket on the former auction market site.

Tesco will be contributing about £200,000 towards the work as part of a planning agreement.

The firm is expected to make known its building timetable next month, but with the store earmarked for the Tesco 2015 financial year it could be two years away.

Ken Pollock, who represents Tenbury on Worcestershire Council, organised the meeting .

He had said the council has set aside the funding for its element of the work.

But he has ruled out any prospect of it being done ahead of the construction of the supermarket.

“I see no way that we would start before Tesco as the disruption of doing the public realm work followed by the construction of the supermarket would be too much,”

he said.

Worcestershire Council needs the cash from Tesco and is not in a position to fund the project and later claim the money back from the supermarket chain.