THE beautiful new floor in Tavistock Town Hall came in for praise during a meeting in the town last week.

Members of the town council's properties committee heard that the hall had been closed for the whole of January to allow for the new maplewood floor to be laid. A programme of other redecoration and refurbishment work was also undertaken at the same time by staff.

Town hall manager Dave Evans said: 'We've had a few functions since we re-opened and everyone seems very pleased with it — certainly the feedback from our dance classes has been very good, they are very impressed with it.'

The original floor had been causing problems over time, particularly in areas of high use, and had been starting to split.

Dave said: 'It was a big job, it took three and a half weeks of mess, but the workmen did a fantastic job.

'Because we were shut for a month we tried to do as much of the other work as we could in house — town hall staff were doing painting and decorating, I did some carpentry — but it's now looking really nice.'

Town clerk Carl Hearn said: 'The new floor has actually created a lot more light — it was a like-for-like replacement but when you have a floor that's been there for many years, what with polishing and general wear, it becomes much more dark in colour.'

Cllr Julia Whitcomb told properties committee members that she had received very positive feedback about the new floor, which cost around £30,000 to replace.

'The ladies who do the jiving said it was wonderful,' she said.

Town mayor Cllr Philip Sanders said: 'I should like to pay tribute to the members of our staff who stepped totally outside their job description to work on the hall — we should thank them.'