Traders are facing a summer of disruption after council leaders announced plans to repave Oxford's Cornmarket Street between May and October.

Faced with the return of pneumatic drills yards from shop doorways, business leaders are calling for proper consultation before a detailed timetable is drawn up for the paving to be dug up and replaced.

Traders are also asking council leaders to reconsider the matter of compensation.

Graham Jones, a spokesman for traders' group Rescue Oxford (Rox), said: "Councillors talked about the issue of compensation last year but to my knowledge no money has been paid out to traders.

"Traders in Cornmarket may object to all the disturbance during the summer months, which is peak time for tourists.

"Businesses certainly need to be fully consulted on this because they suffered enough last year, and got no benefit."

John Moyle, managing director of Boswell's department store in Cornmarket, added: "Ideally, the work would start now and finish before the summer.

"But apparently that is not possible.

"The whole thing has been a disaster, which is a pity because Cornmarket is a great trading street.

"Businesses will want to consider the issue of compensation, because when the work was being done last year, it certainly had an adverse affect on trade."

County council leader Keith Mitchell said: "It's a terrible nuisance, but the work has to be done at some point, and it is likely to take place between May and October.

"The barricades will go up again, and the work will be done all at once. We don't want it to happen in two stages."

The £2.2m project to revamp the shopping street was started last year but was abandoned before Christmas when cracks started to appear in the new granite surface.

The city council is paying £1.8m towards the work, with a £425,000 contribution from the county council.

It is thought that £1m has already been spent, and the city council claims its contract means it doesn't have to pay any extra costs.

Talks are now taking place between the county council, and its contractor, Stenoak, on who should pay the additional costs, and work is not likely to start until this has been resolved.

Eddie Luck, county assistant director for transport development, said he hoped negotiations would not lead to further delays.

He added: "The work was handled quite sensitively last year so that it didn't have too much impact on pedestrian activities and retail sales.

"We hope that will be the case again this year, and that delivery vehicles will still be able to get to the shops."

Throughout last summer, most of the width of the street was fenced off, leaving little room either side for people to get past, which led to queues of shoppers and tourists.

County council engineers announced earlier this month that the paving laid on about half of the street would be ripped up, and work would start again.

Two consultants have now been hired to double-check the findings of paving expert Dr Derek Fordyce, who was commissioned to complete a report into why the paving cracked.

The consultants, who are not being named, will make recommendations before work re-starts.