Chaos is expected on a major road in Falmouth from Monday for two weeks as tree felling begins near a local industrial estate.

So concerned are residents and motorists that The South West of England Regional Development Agency has changed the times of the closure in order to minimise disruption to traffic.

Bickland Water Road, from its junction with Bickland Hill to its junction with Empire Way, will be closed for safety reasons from Monday, January 8.

The road was due to be closed to all traffic but an agreement has been made with County Highways to close it between the hours of 9am and 3.30pm only to allow for morning and evening rush hour traffic, and the school run.

Jeremy Dunn, professional services manager at the RDA, said: "We are aware that there were some concerns in the local community about the impact the road closure could have on traffic in the area so we have revised the times to accommodate peak periods.

"Although this means our contractors will have fewer hours to work during the day we are confident that the work can be completed within two weeks, and we hope to finish it sooner."

The trees are being felled to allow the development of the neighbouring RDA-owned site as a new base for specialist marine drilling contractor Seacore, currently based at Gweek near Helston.

Once the site works are completed the trees will be replaced in the spring with new trees and a landscaping scheme which will improve on what is there at present, both visually and ecologically.

Mr Dunn added: "We investigated in detail how we might keep the existing trees but due to the nature of the site we reluctantly concluded that we had no other option but to remove them and were granted permission by Carrick District Council.

"This is an important development site that will safeguard and create new high quality jobs and we will be working with Budock Parish Council to ensure that the new landscaping scheme is of very high quality."

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