HIGHWAYS bosses preferred to hit retailers with roadworks in the crucial Christmas shopping season rather than risk disrupting the tourist trade, it has been claimed.

Tony Brown, chief executive of Beales, is angry that months of work in Poole town centre and on the A338 Spur Road are taking place simultaneously.

The department store boss is concerned that both Bournemouth and Poole will be badly hit.

Dorset Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP), which secured the funding for both schemes, said the work was necessary to bring long-term benefit to the area.

Its chairman, Jim Stewart, wrote to Mr Brown: “These two sets of major, and much needed, infrastructure improvements are in separate parts of the county – the improvements at Townside access in Poole are 10 miles away from the roadworks at Blackwater on the A338 and will affect different road users.

“The works were programmed to avoid summer and to start after the school summer holidays and the Bournemouth Air Festival. Unfortunately, the nine-month long works make it impossible to avoid all seasonal events and the project teams felt that avoiding summer, Dorset’s busiest tourism period, should be the priority,” he added.

But Mr Brown said: “It is absolutely clear that the decision to plan the roadworks over Christmas was deliberate to avoid the air show and school holidays.

“My reading is both councils and the LEP were happy to disadvantage retailers, restaurants and bars. My guess is we pay more business rates than the air show and the hotels.

“It was a planned phasing, not a forced phasing as we were led to believe.

“It would be in order for the councils to give retailers and restaurants/bars a 50 per cent reduction in business rates during the disruption.”

The Spur Road work, which began in early September, is due to take nine months, but will be suspended from December 10 to January 7.

Mr Brown has said the suspension is not early enough for retailers, who expect Christmas shopping to begin after the October half term holidays.

Work around the Hunger Hill roundabout in Poole begins on Monday, October 8, and will also take nine months.

The LEP says the timing of the A338 scheme was influenced by the fact that the road carries more traffic in summer than at Christmas.

In his letter, Mr Stewart said: “There is always an initial, immediate impact on traffic when works of this scale start. However, drivers generally soon find alternative routes or adjust their travel times.

“I’m sorry that you feel the business community has not been well-communicated about these works. There has in fact been substantial communication ahead of both schemes.”