An in-depth traffic survey will be completed before a decision is taken on whether to allow six properties to be built next to a "dangerous" Helston town centre road.

The decision by Kerrier district planners related to an application to build six houses and/or bungalows at the Waverley site in Monument Road.

Members have already carried out a site meeting at Waverley and were due to make a decision over whether to approve the application or refuse permission.

However, some councillors still had concerns, particularly over the safety of access to the site.

Councillor Sue Swift, who is also a Helston town councillor, said: "It's dangerous. That road and that area are the subjects of frequent police speed gun surveys. The county council mobile speed visor is there and I myself have frequent meetings with police, because of the speed around the area. They speed down the road. It's unbelievable."

She described the state of the road the previous weekend, when there had been a two-day event at the bowling green.

"That road was chock-a-block, right down from the monument to the hotel and it was full there all day. The mayhem it was causing with cars coming up and down was nobody's business," she added.

Councillor Neil Hatton, from the Constantine, Gweek and Mylor ward, described it as an attractive site, adding that the potential to put something there would "remedy an eyesore."

"I'd like to see something developed on that site, but we generally feel that there is still that existing problem with access. I'm wavering and need convincing," he explained.

Committee chairman Pam Lyne said: "I personally feel there is room for development on the site, but I just don't think this is the right development. Having driven down that road and tried to get in to the other entrance, it is not easy."

Nicola Stinson, head of planning services at Kerrier council, said that there had been no objection from the highways department at Cornwall county council in relation to access or any other area of the application.

When the suggestion was mooted that a traffic survey could be made, councillor Zoe Hall said: "What is the traffic survey going to tell us? Is it going to make any difference to this planning application, if we know how much traffic is on the road?"

Despite this, members voted by majority to defer their decision until after a traffic survey had taken place.