Dales of Thirsk, the Yorkshire worktop and memorial masonry company, have launched a website to provide a solution for what to do with all those pieces of leftover slab that keep getting in the way until you eventually throw them in the skip and pay for them to be removed.

Called Stonelocator, it is the brainchild of Neil Collinson, the fifth generation of his family to head Dales.

It has taken six months of development to get the website up and running. It missed the original intended launch date of 7 March but is now live.

The idea grew out of Dales often wanting smaller pieces of stone or engineered quartz, not having what they wanted in stock and having to buy a whole slab, leaving them with more offcuts.

Neil and other local stonemasons would contact each other to see if anyone had appropriate offcuts when they needed them and Neil asked himself why there wasn’t a website for such transactions covering the whole country. Eventually he decided to create one. Stonelocator, intended only for the trade, is the result.

You have to register as a buyer and / or seller, but there is no charge and Dales are not in the business of selling contact details.

You can search for slabs by name of material and county of supplier, and the search facility is being enhanced. You buy on-line using a credit or debit card or PayPal account and Stonelocator take a 15% commission from the seller at that point.

It is up to the buyer to arrange collection, although there are contacts for two hauliers already working in the stone industry on the website.

Dales have put their offcuts on the site and Neil says: “I’m not looking to make much money, but putting slabs up at cost plus 20% is a lot better than putting them in a skip and paying to have them taken away."