About two weeks ago Greater Taree City mayor Paul Hogan and councillor Trent Jennison visited the affected businesses to inform them of the latest delays and the new completion time of late May.

The businesses are banding together and have been writing letters to council explaining the dire affect the closure has had on their livelihoods.

When the Times spoke with some Pulteney Street employees this week there were reports of hours being cut due to the lack of customers making it to the area, with all businesses spoken to reporting an obvious lull in people visiting the area.

"It's affecting us all, big time," said Labbi Kladis of Charcoal Chicken.

"Originally it was supposed to be open next week but now we're talking end of May, and how many more times will it be put back."

But Labbi and other business owners are most upset about the lack of people working on site.

"The thing is, yes we may have had bad weather, but we've also had beautiful, clear days where there is no one there, why is that?

"And then on the days when it is nice and they do turn up, there's sometimes only about three people there, it doesn't make sense."

The business owners say they've asked council about the possibility of overtime being conducted to make up for the time lost and hopefully bring the completion date forward again, but council could not answer the question as they said they hadn't had a response from the contractors.

"They've never done a full week's work there anyway," an exasperated Labbi told the Times.

Gordon Donaldson from Cartridge World and Tony Holden from Holden's Shoe Repairs are all feeling the pinch and are also concerned about the prospect of the whole street being closed for further restoration work in the future.

"We'll need a good eight months at least to recover from this," Tony Holden said.

But Adam Grant, a spokesperson for council about the works told the Times that the 20 plus days of heavy rain throughout February hindered the progress of the project significantly.

In answer to the public's concerns about the perceived lack of workers on site: "What the public doesn't understand is the construction methods that are being taken by the contractors," he said.

"There are drying off periods that need to be considered and technical processes that they are adhering to."

Mr Grant said that the contractors were "on program" based on the extension time, for the project to be completed in late May.