Shrewsbury market hall clock is fixed – again

The market hall clock, which had been out of action for several months, had undergone repairs – costing £16,000 last week.

Clock specialists Smith of Derby carried out the work last Thursday and it was hoped the problem had been fixed.

But less than 48 hours later, a rare fault in the clock's motors cause the landmark to grind to a halt.

Following emergency work carried out yesterday, the clock is now fixed and working correctly.

Kate Gittins, site manager for the market, said: "They found that the new motor had failed and this has been replaced. It is quite rare for this particular make of motor to fail.The faulty motor is to be sent back to the manufacturer for testing as to why it failed in such a short space of time."

Production Director, Kevin Litchfield, from Smith of Derby was sent to assess the problem.

He said: "It emerged that a rare fault had occurred in one of the clock's motors. The problem was fixed and the clock is now fully working again.

"We had an issue of motor failure, which is an extremely rare problem that probably one in every one thousand clocks has.

"It is now fixed and working again and all four faces are displaying the correct time. We apologise for any inconvenience the public has suffered.

"When we fixed the clock last week everything seemed fine with it, but having found the motor fault and replaced the part everything is now working correctly."

All of the clocks on the tower will be stopped at 1am on March 30 and restarted 11 hours later for the transition to British Summer Time.