TRADERS are fuming after discovering roadworks are continuing longer than they thought they were.

Shops have been having a very difficult time as their premises have been blockaded by traffic cones/barriers and signs as road resurfacing work continues on the A556 in Cuddington and Sandiway.

Customers have in some cases given up and moved their custom elsewhere.

Now even more bollards have appeared and because of programmed work on the Whitegate Road bridge, the A556 will be subject to lane closures and diversions for an additional period of time.

John Cambell has been the owner of Define Foods in Chester Road, Sandiway, for eight years.

He said: "It has been so tough.

"We were promised that our customers would have access to the car park and I know at least 20 customers who couldn't get in.

"There seems to have been no sense of urgency and we haven't been offered any compensation.

"We get customers from Knutsford, Chester and Manchester, who won't sit through traffic to get here."

Borough Clr Val Godfrey added: "Do they want to close all our local businesses?

"It is incredible that having given our local traders a very hard time with the current roadworks that anyone can plan to extend their misery.

"As road users we've experienced the delays and the longer journeys but at least it's not our livelihoods that are threatened."