A30 works were “hard work” for businesses

Businesses welcome the opening of a new dual carriageway in Cornwall.

But business owners said it cost them time, money and passage.

National Highways said associated works are still to be completed and the A30 could be closed in the autumn “as part of the completion works”.

Alan Prowse, who runs an agricultural engineering company in St Allen, said the A30 roadworks had cost his firm £300,000 due to an 80 per cent drop in traffic.

“I’m leaving it on the road because people haven’t been able to get to us,” he said.

The parish of St Allen was bisected by the A30 and the planned tunnel was not completed.

Mr Prowse, who owns land on the other side of the road, said it was a 20-mile (32km) round trip, where it had previously been three to four miles (5-6km).

He said he asked the National Highways for compensation but it was refused.

Dan Smith, a plumbing and heating supplier near the Chiverton Cross junction, said the A30 project was “hard work”.

At one point, he said his team had to drive to the next junction, Chybucca, and then drive back themselves, which “took us about half an hour to get about 20m ( 65 ft) from our office”.

St Ives fisherman Matthew Stevens said the building work had cost his firm “tens and tens of thousands of pounds”.

He said he had eight or nine vans that traveled the whole of Devon and Cornwall every day.

During the roadworks, he said an average journey from St Ives to Padstow took an hour and 50 minutes, but when one lane opened last week, the journey was cut to an hour.

He said fully opening the A30 would make “a huge difference”.

A National Highways spokesman thanked the people of Cornwall for their “patience” over the years of construction.

They said: “However, much work remains to be done on local roads, footpaths, cycle paths, bridleways and structures to close the site and fully complete the project.

“In the autumn we may also need some overnight closures on the A30 as part of the completion works.”

In February, National Highways said no compensation was available to people who lived near the works.