A yard storing granite from the troubled project to repave Cornmarket Street in Oxford is costing the county council £2,000 a month to rent.

Councillors say they have no choice because there is nowhere else to store the stone -- and they do not even know what to do with it.

The granite is standing in a yard in Oseney Lane -- rented by the council from a subsidiary company of the Strategic Rail Authority for its contractor Associated Solutions -- because they do not own a suitable depot in the city centre.

The stone was intended for the repaving of Cornmarket, but the scheme was halted at the end of last year after cracks began to appear in the surface. The city and county councils have now agreed a £2.7m plan to repave the street with an asphalt surface, which should be completed by July.

County council spokesman Jane Young said: "We do not have a compound ourselves in the centre of Oxford and it would not be cost-effective to relocate to Bicester or Drayton, and then move everything back again."

She added the extra costs incurred in rent beyond the finishing date initially agreed for the contract would be claimed back from the contractors. The council is also trying to recover £600,000 from contractors for the failed paving scheme.

David Robertson, the council's executive member for transport, said there were no plans at present for the granite to be used.

He said: "The contractors may be able to take it and use it elsewhere at some point.

"There is no room to store materials on the Oxford Prison site, where developments are happening very quickly, and there is nowhere else suitable in the centre of Oxford."

The council is testing a number of road surface materials in Bonn Square to see if any would be suitable as a top surface for Cornmarket.

In the new paving scheme, York stone paving will extend the full length of the street. Previously, it stopped outside HSBC Bank.