The shoppers and traders of Newhaven were delighted when work to spruce up High Street finished.

Old pavement slabs were replaced with attractive stone blocks, a smooth new road surface was laid and 20 £2,000 lamp posts installed as part of a £300,000 regeneration project.

Days later though, workmen were back on the scene. They had come from an electricity firm to dig up the pavement so they could install cables for the street lights.

East Sussex County Council says the matter is out of its hands as it is up to the power company when it does the work.

EDF Energy says it had to wait for a safety certificate for the equipment from the council's representatives before it could start the work.

Residents have been left asking why the cables were not laid before the expensive road and paving was put down in the first place.

Mike Brooks, 55, of Anderson Close, Newhaven, said: "This has already been quite a lengthy job.

"Just a few days ago it looked quite respectable. Now they have taken up really large areas of the pavement to put cabling in and it looks like they're building another Channel Tunnel. This is farce and a waste of tax payers' money."

Graham Southgate, 45, who runs La Baguette Shop in High Street, said: "This does seem crazy. I think somebody should have scheduled this a bit better."

A county council spokeswoman said the paving had to be completed and the lamp posts put up before electricity cables go down - under the same footpath.

She said: "Whenever the county council plans a road improvement scheme, it tries hard to ensure if an electricity supply is required for street lights this can be achieved at the same time as the roadworks.

"Unfortunately in this case it was not possible."

Alan Cook, transport team leader at the council, said: "The work going on at the moment is associated with the electrical connections to the new lighting columns. This is being carried out on behalf of EDF. Unfortunately we have no control over when their contractors do the work."

But a spokeswoman for EDF Energy said: "We received a request from contractors working for East Sussex to install 20 services on June 16 as part of a council scheme to install new street lights.

"In order to install new power supplies we must first receive a safety test certificate for the new equipment from the council's representatives.

"We received the paperwork on July 8 and started work last week. As far as we are aware the contractors are happy with our response and our work to date."