Pensioner Margaret Waters still has to drink through a straw four weeks after tripping on a loose paving stone and falling on her face in Chippenham.

Mrs Waters, 66, who is regularly out walking, suffered the facial injury needing stitches after falling outside the Britannia building society in Market Place, dislodging her teeth.

She was taken to the Royal United Hospital in Bath after the accident on October 19 and had to have a brace fitted and have eight stitches between her top lip and nose.

She said: “It just happened so quickly. I was walking along and the next thing I was flying through the air.

“I had blood pouring out of my face.

“I must say I was absolutely delighted with the treatment I received at the Royal United Hospital.”

Nearly four weeks after the accident, her husband Fred Waters said: “She’s still drinking through a straw.”

Town councillor Mary Fallon happened to be passing and waited with Mrs Waters until the ambulance came. She said: “I came across a pedestrian who had fallen down owing to loose Yorkstone pavings with cracks and large chips out of them.

“On further inspection down the High Street to the town bridge I found that there were chunks out of quite a few of the pavings and an inordinate number of pavements that rock substantially.”

Coun Fallon is asking people to report loose paving stones and insufficient dropped kerbs to her at the town hall so she can make the town council’s planning committee aware of the situation at its meeting next Thursday.

She said: “Mrs Waters is an ambulant person, showing the state of the pavements concerns everyone.

“They’ve got to look seriously at the tonnage.

“Yorkstone is okay just for pedestrians, but the great many heavy vehicles that supply the market stalls may have been contributing to the many cracked stones all the way down to the town bridge.

“We do want a market, so they need to strengthen the pavements.”

In October she took a Wiltshire Council area engineer on a tour of the town centre after several people had been thrown out of their wheelchairs onto pavements.

She hired a mobility scooter for him to go around the town in so he could experience the bumps of the ride for himself. They travelled from Parkfields to High Street via various approaches.

Following the visit Wiltshire Council said progress was being made.