LONG-promised pavement improvements have come too late for two sisters who both tripped at the same spot at Witney’s newest shopping centre.

Maureen Cross, 75, blames a protruding drain cover for her fall on Tuesday, August 17 lunchtime, just hours after her sister, Yvonne Souch, 67, tripped at the same spot.

Mrs Cross was left unable to walk on her left leg and badly shaken by the incident.

Improvement works started at the £50m shopping complex, in Welch Way, at the beginning of the month.

Oxfordshire County Council has received 20 complaints about the pavement since the complex opened last October. The council asked Simons Developments to improve the paving, which shoppers claimed was uneven and cracked.

Alex Blakelock, spokesman for Simons, said: “We’re sorry that some areas of paving are causing an issue, and are now progressing with repairs to the service yard entrances and cracked paving slabs. We’re on track to complete this in September. We’re also repairing areas of paving on the mall area. This will be completed by the end of August, and will address the drain cover in question.”

Improvement works will include ten per cent of the paving.

Just two months before, Freddie Mahony, 32, of Court Gardens, who lost the use of both his legs in a motorbike accident 13 years ago, was thrown from his wheelchair when he hit a different drain cover.

He claimed the cover, near to the Welch Way entrance, was not flush with the pavement and caused hundreds of pounds of damage to his wheelchair.

Mrs Cross, of Wadards Meadow, was shopping with another sister, Gillian Saxby, 62, near Marks & Spencer.

She said: “We were walking past what should be Starbucks, but I can’t remember much else — apparently I tripped over a drain cover. When I got to my feet, my leg collapsed.”

Two PCSOs came to widow Mrs Cross’ aid and called an ambulance, which took her to Witney Community Hospital.

She was later discharged from hospital, with a bruised knee.

Mother-of-one Mrs Cross said: “It’s very badly bruised, and it’s very painful.

“But the worst thing was the shock. I don’t feel 75, but when something like this happens, you do go into shock. I was all over the place, I didn’t know where I was when I got up.

“I couldn’t even straighten my leg, and I couldn’t move it. I don’t know what I would have done if the PCSOs hadn’t come to help.”

Mrs Souch, of Lancut Road, Witney, had tripped at exactly the same spot at 11am that day, but had saved herself from falling.

She said: “It was an accident waiting to happen, and it’s sad. You have to walk around with your eyes peeled on the floor.”

In March, Janet Berry, 68, was left in plaster after she fell outside the development. She was walking along Welch Way when she tripped on a hole in the pavement.

She was taken to the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, where her left hand was put in a splint with two broken knuckles.