RESIDENTS and office workers were placed in lockdown and traffic was halted on one of Poole’s busiest roads when the hunt for an armed robber moved to a block of nine flats near the Civic Centre roundabout.

A police helicopter hovered above the Gollytops flats as a 100-metre section of Commercial Road was cordoned off at about 10.20am.

Residents of neighbouring flats and houses and workers in nearby offices were warned to stay indoors as half a dozen police with guns moved in to search the two-storey Georgian-style building.

Among those watching the drama unfold was worried Alison Messenger, whose daughter Catherine has just given birth at Poole Hospital’s maternity unit.

“My 18-month-old grandson McKenzie was in the flats with his nanny and grandad.

“I was coming to get him anyway to take him to his mum. She had a call and phoned to tell me to get down here quickly.”

Shortly afterwards, the cordon was lifted and Kerry Dane emerged with the little boy, who was asleep in his pushchair.

“It’s been a bit scary. There were a lot of armed police and we didn’t know what it was. We were just told to stay inside,” she said.

Zelda Snook, who has lived in the next-door cottage with her husband Martin for 44 years, said: “I had a young lady here doing my nails at the back of the house. I said, ‘That helicopter has been flying around for about half-an-hour, so at any moment someone might jump over the wall’.

“She went outside to go home and a policewoman came rushing over and said ‘get back inside quick’. She just dropped her case.”

Mrs Snook said there had been a high turnover of tenants at the flat, especially on the first floor, but neither she nor her husband had previously seen the car that was taken away from the rear of the property by the police.