Jonathon Wilkes, who is behind the village's £1 million regeneration scheme, said contractors would be taking up the stones in preparation for its resurfacing from Monday.

But a group of locals feel they have been let down in the council's promise that as many stones as possible would be re-used in the scheme.

Kirklees cabinet met in January to discuss a petition handed to them by the Birstall Heritage and Conservation Group, which called for all the setts, which they counted as 28,000, to be incorporated in the scheme.

Cabinet members promised as many setts that were re-usable would feature in the new market place, but in areas of minimal pedestrian usage for health and safety reasons. The remaining stones would be saved for future projects in the village.

Chairwoman of the conservation group, Beverley Mottram, said: "Since that meeting in January there have been no amended plans to incorporate the old stones and we just don't trust what the council has said.

"We believe there are quite a lot that could be re-used safely if they are redressed. But rather than do this the council seems to be discarding most of the setts, which is tragic.

"We were promised that some of the stones would be taken up and samples would be analysed. How on earth can the council say the cobbles are not worth while using when they haven't even taken a sample up yet?"

But Mr Wilkes said there were no plans to take samples. Instead all the stones would be taken out, and those which could be re-used would be placed around the statue of Joseph Priestley and around a finger pointer at the other end of the market place.

He said: "There are some who have the impression that the setts will be nice and smooth and reusable underneath but I doubt that very much.

"The setts wont be re-usable mainly because they don't give an adequate surface for walking on and disability access. You have to put in a reasonable smooth pedestrian surface, and these setts just wont provide that. I don't believe there are as many re-usable setts as this group feel there are."

Work on the scheme, which as well as redesigning the market place includes resurfacing the roads and pavements in Birstall village centre, is expected to last six months.