The owners of businesses facing homelessness if a new discount retailer is built in Penryn have said there is no room in the area for small enterprises.

Ten small businesses will have nowhere to go if plans are approved to demolish their units to make way for a Home Bargains store at Kernick Road, as a dearth of affordable small business and industrial units in the town, and in Falmouth, will leave them with little choice but to relocate further afield or face closure.

Steve Pease, a boat builder who leases one of the units, said their concerns were not so much about losing the site as having "nowhere else to go."

He said: "There are some units available, but they are small and expensive, or unsuitable for some other reason. A lot of us do some dirty work, and that means you need a yard as well as a unit, and that's very hard to find.

"There's a dearth of available places for people like us."

He added: "We're small fry, but we contribute as well: Earning a living, paying tax, employing people, and we offer a service to local people.

"Small businesses are the lifeblood of Cornwall's economy."

Sue Laity, of sewing machine company Sew Quick, said "I have been looking [for another unit] for six to nine months, I can't find anything."

Mark Occhilupo, of Cornwall Welding and Fabrication, said the area was Kernick industrial estate, and not a retail park, adding that small businesses provided services to local people, drew in business to the town from other areas, and provided work for other local businesses.

He said: "We were considering growing, but we have put the brakes on everything. We have come to a stand still."

There have also been objections to the plans from members of the public. Writing on Cornwall Council's planning website, Matt Jenkin said his power tool repair business brought him into contact with many self-employed tradespeople on a daily basis, and there are few small industrial premises in the Falmouth and Penryn area, adding that a Home Bargains store would be "of great detriment" to businesses and shops.

He said: "In the last 10 years or so I have noticed a marked decline in activity in both Falmouth and Penryn town centres; with both having that horrible feel of a town on the brink of collapse. Taking yet more trade from our local traders and handing it to a large chain store is surely a bad move."

And local resident Vicky Sandy wrote: "Surely it would be a better business model to demolish these buildings and replace them with better planned, more space efficient units that can be rented to local businesses."

"The area does not need another discount store selling below standard products."

Mary May, who sits on Penryn Town Council and represents the town on Cornwall Council, met with residents of the unit last week.

She said: "I really felt for them, all great people with good, sound businesses and orders on their books.

"This is a story about people who want to work with a passion, but at the moment all doors seem to be closing on them."

Penryn town clerk Michelle Davey said the planning application form and design statement, supported by the council in January, states that the buildings are currently vacant, and "the town council may have taken a different view if it was aware that they were all in use, particularly by small businesses."

She said the council had attempted to prevent the loss of small industrial units at West End when it fought, and lost, an application for a change of use a number of years ago, and added that the need for such units could be fed into the town's Neighbourhood Plan if there is evidence to support it.

Cornwall Council will have to decide on the application by Friday, February 26.