TRAFFIC chaos is killing business according to angry traders in Weymouth.

Many business people in the town centre are threatening to stop paying their rates in protest at the loss of trade caused by the road works.

Dozens of businesses throughout the town claim that works being carried out as part of the Olympic Transport Package is preventing customers from coming into town.

The Fantastic Sausage Factory owner Dennis Spurr said that businesses would have to take drastic measures in order to get the authorities to listen to them.

He said: “I do not know what the council have got planned to rectify this but I suggest they do something pretty quick.

“Until they do something reasonable, we are going to have to come together to take extreme action, like stop paying our business rates.”

Jeremy Peel-Yates, owner of Tans Unlimited in Great George Street, agreed that ‘extreme action’ might have to be taken.

He said his takings are now down by at least 50 per cent despite it being a peak time for his business.

Mr Peel-Yates said that business had ‘fallen off the edge of a cliff’ since the work began.

He said: “I’m around 50 per cent down and it could even be as much as 75 per cent.

“The council have asked us to be patient, but are they prepared to be patient and wait to receive their business rates because we cannot afford to pay them?

“If it carries on like this, that is what might have to happen.”

Mr Peel-Yates added: “I don’t think anyone realised the extent of what was going to happen in the run up to the Olympics.

“Quite frankly, if we had been told, there would have been riots.”

Alison Scrivin, owner of Thyme Out café also in Great George Street, said she’d also been hit.

She said: “We have the same local customers in here every day but this week we’ve been a lot quieter because they don’t want to come into town. Some have phoned me up to tell me they don’t want to be sat on the bus in the traffic.”

Fiona Ashworth, owner of Captain’s Table fish and chip shop in Frederick Place, said she had to order in extra stock because their deliveries were running late.

She said: “Our delivery van took two hours to get here from Portland the other day because of the traffic.

“There’s less customers coming in and those that do are moaning that it’s taking them ages to get into town.”

Both the Thyme Out café and Captain’s Table agreed that drastic action, such as not paying business rates, might be the only way to make a point.

Although it is Dorset County Council who is behind the Weymouth Transport Package, some businesses feel that withholding payments for business rates paid to Weymouth and Portland Borough Council would be the only way to be heard.

Other businesses which said they would contemplate witholding business rates included The Wellington Arms in St Alban Street, Dasu in St Thomas Street, the Rock and Fudge Shop on the Esplanade and The Edinburgh House of Sounds in St Thomas Street.

A spokesman for Weymouth and Portland Borough Council said they had no comment to make.