ROAD closures during nine months of works at Canford Bottom roundabout will kill business in the area, protestors claim.

Diversions for the £5.7million project will see redundancies and companies folding, a group of 20 business people from Canford Bottom, Colehill, Wimborne and Ferndown Industrial Estate say.

Some roads will be closed for up to 12 weeks at a time under the scheme, which is due to start next month.

It needs to be finished before added traffic travels down the A31 next July, for the Olympic events in Weymouth, the Highways Agency argue.

Terry Clegg, of Hill and Son Limited, at Canford Bottom, says the road closures are “frightening”.

“It will take 8.8 miles on a diversion from Ferndown to Canford Bottom,” he said. “That’s absolutely crazy.

“The fear is that customers who go elsewhere are never ever going to come back.”

Andy King, of the Low Carbon Energy Centre, Wimborne, said 16,000 jobs at Ferndown Industrial Estate and thousands in Wimborne could be affected.

“This will cause major disruption and damage,” he said.

“It will cut Wimborne and Ferndown off from each other.

“There will be gridlock and severe damage to trade – people just will not come to Wimborne.”

Nigel Samson, of Samson Motor Engineers at Ferndown Industrial Estate, visits Hill and Son six to eight times daily for MOTs.

“These works will cut a heart out of the community,” he said. “And we all know as locals that it cannot work.”

They’re calling for the project to be shelved until after the Olympics, and just have local roads shut off for the two weeks of sailing.

Ian Walsh, of Dorset Autospares, said: “It’s just a massive gamble with people’s livelihoods for two weeks’ benefit to Weymouth. The risk outweighs the reward. We’d rather have a period of pain that we know is coming and can work around, rather than protracting it.”

Councillor Janet Dover said businesses are “in peril” and have not been properly consulted.

“This is not the right way to do anything,” Cllr Dover said. “The Olympics is not a good enough reason for the horrendous disruption to the local area.”

The Highways Agency was happy to provide further information about the scheme, which will ease traffic over the next 10 years and be a “huge benefit” to the Olympic Route Network, a spokeswoman said.

A contract for the works was signed yesterday between the contractor Carillion and the Highways Agency.