Yorkshire Water, which has already promised to fund an expensive promotional campaign across various media, has now confirmed a crunch meeting to discuss alternatives to the current diversion, which is due to remain until May.

A spokesman for the company, Steve Parsley, said: "The meeting will take place next Thursday between ourselves, the county council highways department, traders and others to discuss alternatives to the current diversion and see if there is anything we can do.

"For example, if we get a little bit of the work finished, then we might be able to use Clarence Drive.

''But if we can't, then there are alternatives."

However, he said Yorkshire Water could not pre-empt the outcome of the meeting, which depends on the views of other parties, in particular the Highways Authority.

"The focus this week has been based on the advertising campaign, which will be an 11-week campaign both in the press and the broadcast media.

"We've been working with the traders on the wording and the campaign will begin in the very near future, continuing until Easter and. if required, beyond."

He added that the feedback to the company had been excellent from both traders and others, who said they were doing "fantastic" work to try to improve the situation for everyone.

Mr Parsley said although the emergency services raised no objections to the plans before the work started, concerns raised by traders and others had allowed the fire service to come back to the table to negotiate better access arrangements for their appliances, which are subject to the same diversions as other vehicles.

Danny Westmoreland, the fire service's Scarborough district group manager, said they would be delighted if something could be agreed – potentially shortening their emergency response time by up to three minutes.

He said: "I think any delay needs to be avoided as far as possible.

''But there are times when the level crossing is down and we're mobilised and we've had some issues with that.

"Yorkshire Water is hoping to have the critical work done within the next week or so, and barring any problems coming to light, they will be letting us use the Clarence Drive access as soon as they can."

* A call has gone out for motorists to stop parking "dangerously close" to the junction of Wharfedale and Muston before walking the rest of the way into Filey.

Resident Andy Preston said: "I have seen many very awkward situations with cars trying to get in and out of the estate recently due to thoughtless drivers parking too close to the junction, causing quite a few near misses."