Gas works in Weymouth town centre are continuing to disrupt local businesses.

Work has been going on for weeks in the area of St Mary Street and Bond Street, with large parts of the streets excavated to allow SGN to upgrade pipes under the roads.

The work is drawing to a close this week.

The Echo previously reported that a number of businesses were losing customers as a result of the excavation sites obstructing the view to their shops.

Tony Morris, managing director of Rude Not To in Bond Street, said his business has been struggling whenever the works are going on.

Despite having good business over the Bank Holiday weekend, once the work resumed he faced problems again.

He said: "It's a black and white situation. Once they block it off, no one can get up here."

SGN says that the work will be completed this week.

Dan Brown, a spokesman for SGN, said: "We’ve completed all engineering work enabling us to safely reopen St Mary Street, Bond Street and St Thomas Street to motorists (deliveries).

"We have one small excavation still to backfill as part of this gas network upgrade work and this will be reinstated by Wednesday 12 June. Once reinstatement is completed, we’ll be able to clear our site completely."

The project led to the junction of Bond Street and St Mary Street being closed off to delivery drivers while the work was ongoing.

Sandra Smith, manager of the Grape Tree health food shop in St Thomas Street, also said that the work was blocking the view to her store, leading to a sharp loss in profits.

She said: "I was watching people just walking past because they were pushed out by the gas works. I don't know what head office are going to do about it."

The Echo previously reported that SGN are offering a compensation process for small businesses affected by the work.

This can be found at sgn.co.uk/Contact-SGN/Compensation/

Weymouth Business Improvement District (BID) also declared its intention support local businesses, and shared the hashtag #BeatTheGasWorks.

In a previous statement, Claudia Webb, Chief Operations Officer for Weymouth BID said: “Obviously the work needs to be done but communication could have been better.

“If any businesses would like us to promote them during the works they are most welcome.”